Hot wedding when groom sets pants afire

He and Annie McCoy tied the knot at the home of his parents. The onset of winter cooled the outdoor air, but indoors things were about to heat up.

The wedding was first reported by a local newspaper then reprinted in a Detroit paper and syndicated in others across the nation as well.

Vander Sluis was described in the press as a “young man of excellent family with a roseate future.”

He apparently was quite an attractive catch, too, as it was reported “all the girls in Hudsonville, Michigan, had been trying to catch Adrian Vander Sluis for a long time.”

But Annie, who was a resident of nearby Jamestown, was the lucky lady who caught his eye.

During the ceremony, Annie’s little sister was given a piece of the chocolate wedding cake “to keep her out of the way while the ceremony was being performed.”

The little girl ate only part of the slice before placing what remained of it, frosting side up, on the seat of a dining room chair.

After the blushing bride had received congratulations from family and envious friends, the group moved to the dining room for supper.

Vander Sluis seated himself.

Yes, right upon the cake.

He sprang up and laugher ensued from all present.

The oily, chocolate spectacle was on the seat of Adrian Vander Sluis’ fine lavender trousers. Annie sprang forth and whisked Adrian off to another room to clean off the pants.

Annie scraped most of the chocolate off best she could.

“She wiped the rest away with a rag dipped in gasoline,” it was reported. “She applied gasoline where it would do most good and soon all evidences of the chocolate were removed.”

The happy couple returned to the dining room to continue the celebration with their guests.

Adrian was ill at ease, sweating from embarrassment and uncomfortably damp from the gasoline. Perhaps in an effort to remove attention from himself, he passed around a box of cigars and each gentleman took one. They lit the cigars as a toast to the bridegroom.

A more relaxed Adrian took a cigar, bit off the end, and placed it in his lips. He then took “a red-headed sulfur match” and struck it on “the crest of his trousers,” or, essentially his fly zipper.

Yes, Adrian Vander Sluis’ pants ignited.

“There was a puff, a blaze, a yell of agony,” the press reported. The new husband cried, “I’m on fire,” and rose to his feet clutching his coattails.

The young women in attendance, no doubt several who had Adrian in their martial eyeglasses at one time, shrieked in disbelief.

One gentleman rushed to grab a pitcher of water while another headed outdoors to the well to get a bucket of the same. But the first to snuff out the flames was Annie, who grabbed hold of a mat and tamped out the flames.

Adrian’s trousers were effectively ruined.

It was reported that after the scare and things had settled down, dinner resumed.

But Adrian Vander Sluis elected to stand, eating his wedding meal from a mantle above the fireplace. Evidently there was no flame at the time in the fireplace or he could have ignited again.

It was reported that the day after the wedding the fine young ladies that shrieked at the flaming pants were all laughing at Adrian’s hot wedding.

Newspapers around the nation published Adrian’s flaming pants story for about a month as a form of comic relief. About three different versions were circulated, all basically providing the same details.

Some abbreviated versions of the article rewritten from the Detroit newspaper erroneously named the location of the couple’s wedding as Detroit. But all full-length articles, no matter where published, state Annie McCoy was from Jamestown, and Adrian from and the wedding taking place in Hudsonville, Michigan.

Attempts to trace what became of Adrian and Annie Vander Sluis after their wedding proved futile.

Many named Vander Sluis thrived in Ottawa County during that time period and it’s possible the news items provided different first names for Adrian and Annie.

Perhaps after the wedding both chose to go into hiding, never to be found. But perhaps they lived happily ever after with Adrian always holding a flame for his sweetheart.

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