Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [51]
Her health was one of the main reasons why Jess and I chose to get married that summer, as I wasn’t sure how much longer she would have the strength (or desire) to leave her house.
It was the right decision, and on our wedding day all of her pain and hardship from the past decade seemed to drain away. She looked so beautiful and happy in her purple silk dress and it was such a blessing to have her there. It’s one of my favorite memories of her.
We wanted to do something different for our wedding, so we ordered a flock of butterflies from Toronto that we planned to release during the ceremony. The idea was to store them in the fridge, which kept them cold and dormant until it was time for them to fly. When you took them out of the fridge a few hours before the wedding, they thawed out, and when released would flutter to the sky to the delight and amazement of your Auntie Joan and Uncle Larry.
But when I took the butterfly envelopes out of the fridge, they were completely silent. I shook them and listened for a rustle, a scratch, a peep, a tremble, a flap (or whatever sound butterfly wings make), but there was nothing. A horrible thought crossed my mind: what if when the wedding guests opened the envelopes, the butterflies were all dead? Would they be my own personal “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”? Would I have to wear them around my neck like an albatross when I said my vows? In order to avoid certain tragedy, my cousin Chad wisely advised my groomsmen that if the butterflies were indeed dead inside of their packets to just toss them in the air anyway. Luckily, when it came time for the little guys to do their job, they awoke and fluttered straight up to the heavens, to the delight and amazement of my Auntie Joan and Uncle Larry.
The wedding was a huge success and my queen was the most breathtakingly gorgeous woman in the world in her beautiful wedding gown(and she still is). I was in love at full volume and knew that she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
The flowers were beautiful, the band was incredible, the food was delicioso, and almost two hundred people celebrated with us that day. It was one of the best days of my life and was by far one of the most amazing parties I’ve ever been to. I highly recommend that everybody give this wedding thing a try at some point.
I had invited all of my friends in the business, and most of them showed up, including Edge, Christian, Billy Kidman, Disco Inferno, and Cyrus. I invited Vince and he responded by saying, “Winnipeg. Why would I want to go to Winnipeg?” The ones who couldn’t make it, like Dean and Eddy, RSVPd to let me know beforehand.
But one friend was quite conspicuous by his absence: Chris Benoit.
Not only did he not RSVP, but he never mentioned anything about the wedding at all—beforehand or afterwards. It hurt my feelings, because even though he was one of my best friends, he didn’t have the courtesy to politely decline my invitation or even wish me luck. But it didn’t surprise me, as Chris could be quite elusive and hard to figure out at times.
The day after the wedding, Jessica and I were on the cover of The Winnipeg Sun with the headline, “Manitoba’s Sexiest Man Gets Married!” I’d won that dubious honor a year earlier after topping a poll that saw Burton Cummings, the fifty-three-year-old singer of the Guess Who, finish in second place. Well, I should hope that I’m sexier than any middle-aged man with an afro and a mustache, no matter how good a singer he is.
At the bottom corner of the front page there was a little blurb announcing that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt had also tied the