I’m not big on spending time on Facebook, but the other day, when I logged on to post a gig advertisement, The Facebook Gods decided that I would like to see some memories of past posts.  It turns out they were right!

So I took a look, and this is what came up.

I remembered it immediately.

Looks nice, right? If you read the caption, you would think that everything went great.  But it reality it was nearly the worst moment of my life as a musician. And I only escaped due to sheer, absolute luck.

I had been hired to play a special song for the bride and her father at a wedding ceremony in Upper Dublin, a Philadelphia suburb about an hour from where I live.  The special piece is called Alblassen, which most people know as the theme song to the CBS Morning show, played by my trumpet hero, Wynton Marsalis. The bride and her dad had a tradition of watching CBS Morning together, and wanted to include its opening music at the wedding.

That piece is very difficult for me because it’s played on piccolo trumpet, has a wide range, and is unaccompanied.  Luckily, it’s pretty short, but it’s action packed nonetheless. I had prepared pretty well but was still a little stressed about having to play the piece at such an important moment at somebody’s wedding.

Knowing how traffic can be, I hit the road plenty early on wedding day.  I planned to have enough time to change at the church when I arrived, so my driving wardrobe was my typical sweatpants and a tee shirt.

Everything was going smoothly when I exited the highway and turned right onto the main road of town, as directed by my GPS.  The destination was 8 minutes away.

But 5 minutes later, I started to have doubts. I was in a residential area.  It didn’t look like the place where a church would be.  GPS started doubting too.  My ETA went back 7 minutes, but when I followed it, the ETA went back further and I was driving in circles around the neighborhood.

I started feeling hot and sweaty all over.

I shut the app down, re-opened it and re-entered the address.  This time, it told me to take a turn onto one of the roads I had passed by a few minutes ago when I was circling the block.  

I was feeling cautiously better as I got close to the turn, but that disappeared  when I saw that the street I was being directed to turn on to was actually nothing more than an unpaved alley.  It was weird though because there were a few houses scattered along it, with mailboxes along the “road” and front doors facing the right direction.  The alley was curved with lots of tall trees along it, so I couldn’t really see to the end.  

I imagined that maybe the church was at the end of this stone path, almost hidden in a peaceful spot on the edge of this nice neighborhood. GPS showed that its directions led to a large property with a building on the far side. It could be the church and a large lot. Maybe the app was trying to bring me in from the back?

So I started driving down the alley.

But it was narrowing as I went.

Despite my now complete lack of faith in the GPS app, I decided to take this stone road all the way, which happened to be to a dead end. With a fence in front of me, a large tree on the left, and several large rocks on the right, I was surrounded by three places I didn’t want to be.

The path had shriveled to one lane many yards ago, and because I kept driving, I was faced with 2 bad options. I could attempt to turn the car around.  Or I could back the entire way out onto the regular road (maybe a quarter mile?).  

I went for the turn.  It sounds like an easy thing to do but I can assure you- it was not easy! There was almost no room to spare in any direction.  I managed to do it inch by inch, but it took several minutes, minutes that I no longer had because the wedding was now starting in only half an hour! I was supposed to be arriving at the church by now, but instead I didn’t even know where the church was!

Once clear of the ridiculous stone road, I pulled the car over to the curb and idled for a minute, trying to clear my head.  

I felt terrible.  Somehow the bride and I had failed to trade cell numbers.  Our only contact was through email.  I had no way of getting in touch with her.  I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be checking email on her wedding day.

I called the church- but nobody answered.

I sat there a minute longer, painfully imagining what it must be like to have your wedding ceremony ruined by some idiot trumpet player and his incompetent GPS. It was definitely the worst moment of my trumpet life. 

My mind went back several years to a similar incident, in the early days of MapQuest, when I was very late to an audition because the directions I had printed called for a right turn off the highway instead of a left.

Could it be happening again?

I didn’t know but I had no better options than to find out.  I weaved through traffic like an NFL halfback on a big run, getting back to the main highway much quicker than I should have.  

The wedding was starting in fifteen minutes.  I should have been at the church finishing my warm-up.

I kept going, exploring this section of road that GPS had told me to turn away from.

Fortunately there were no police around to catch my speed when I saw something gleam brightly at the top of the hill.  Seconds later I could tell it was the sun bouncing off a bright and silvery church steeple!  Could it be my church?

A red light gave me a chance to try GPS once more, and it was now pointing me to the silvery steeple!  

There was no relief though, the wedding was now starting in 8 minutes. And I still had to change clothes.

The church was situated on a nice but unusual plot of land, with a woodsy yet beautiful outdoor worship space hidden from view. It was down a slight hill, behind the church building.  That’s where I was to be playing- it was an outdoor ceremony.

I pulled in to the upper section of the parking lot and flung open both the driver door and the passenger door on the same side, creating a makeshift changing room. I was supposed to be changed, in place and playing that special piece for the bride and her Dad in 4 minutes.  

I was dressed, but very sweaty from the stress as I grabbed my horn out of the case and practically ran across the parking lot, making my way to the back of the ceremony area. As I approached, I was surprised to hear no music.  The pianist was supposed to be playing several pieces before the bride’s entrance and the special music I was to play.

Am I later than I thought?  Did I miss the whole thing?

I was also surprised that they weren’t many people sitting in the outdoor worship space under the trees.

What was happening?!

Trying to disguise my inner panic, I walked up to the guy sitting quietly at the electric keyboard, introduced myself, and asked what was going on.

My mind was such a mess that I don’t remember what he said.  All I know is that the wedding hadn’t started on time, and everybody, including the guests, were doing something inside the church in the “normal” worship space.

I was saved, but only in terms of not being fatally late. I still needed to perform this tough piece well and I wasn’t going to get a chance to loosen my embouchure or warm up.  The wedding guests started coming out of the church and settling in under the trees just a moment or two after I spoke with the pianist.

It was a happy bunch! There were lots of smiling faces as the guests took their places and the pianist played.  I was smiling on the outside, and feeling fortunate to have not missed the wedding, but inside I was creating the mental state I needed in order to play this piece cold, in front of people, at this meaningful moment for the family.

Minutes later, the bride made her entrance and it was “go time” for me.

I pretended I was Wynton Marsalis, and just let it rip.

And it went well!

I didn’t get to see the bride’s face.  I played the piece with my eyes closed.  She had her back towards me anyway at the alter.  At the end of the ceremony, she and her new husband recessed back in to the church building and off to the reception before I got a chance to meet them.  

I emailed her the next day to say congratulations and to thank them for asking me to play at that special moment, but I never heard from her again.  I figured the couple was on a honeymoon and may take a while to respond, but they never did.

I don’t know if they were aware of how late I was, or if that indoor activity (whatever it was) clouded my tardiness from view.  Or maybe that activity was to buy time until everyone was in place- including me?

I’ll never know.  I’m just glad things turned out as well as they did.

As a post script: here’s a short video of me playing that same piece, Alblassen, as part of my wedding trumpeter demo.

Thanks for reading! For more of my writing, music, photos, etc… please see the self promotion center below 😁

Follow/subscribe to Five O’Clock Shadow for my writing and photo journals.

Listen to my music on any streaming platform (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, etc.) under the following artist names:
Todd Fulginiti- cd available
The Cat’s Pajamas Old School Jazz Band- cd available
Fulginiti Family Band
Holiday Horns

For info on my live performance music events, bands and ensembles, booking, etc– visit toddfulginiti.com (there’s a blog there too for related writing).