Wedding Story
Perhaps our first mistake was forgetting to account for life as life. Somehow, we believed that the day we got engaged, our normally busy jobs would suddenly slow down in order to give us more time in our personal lives to do our planning. Hilarious thought! My job left me crazy enough that details I wanted to nail down months out were handled days out, and wedding events I desperately want to attend for information and planning sake were just a dream, never a reality.
Our next mistake was the thought that our families, who we love very much but drive us crazy none-the-less, would act “normal” long enough to get through the festivities. Ha! Double ha! Halfway through wedding planning, my husband’s brother and his wife entered into the nastiest divorce proceedings imaginable – just after we’d asked their son and daughter to be a ring bearer and bridesmaid, respectively. We’ll not even mention the fact that my brother-in-law to be was slated as our best man. Needless to say, our wedding party experienced a bit of a shake-up. Already small, we were reduced to just two attendants on each side and the cutest flower girl on the planet. Although it made us very sad to have to ask our soon-to-be divorced best man to step down from our party, it was our only option, as his travel to the event wasn’t even confirmed until there was less than a week to go. And that was only the start of the family drama!
His mom was the first arrival, more than a week before the big day. A somewhat quiet and shy woman I’d only met once previously, I was quite nervous as to how having her as a houseguest would play out. Although it was fine overall, we did have some funny spots. First, our wedding present from my husband’s grandma, who could not attend due to distance and her overall condition, was to have come along with mom. A present with very special meaning, mom decided we simply did not need it, and told her mom to get us something else instead. Ack! Next, mom decided she needed to add something extra to her present to us, telling my husband that she simply needed to replace our old, filthy living room lampshades, which just happen to be only 6 months old and a distressed “shabby chic” pattern we love. Oops! And finally, our actual present – a quite skillful pen-and-ink drawing of a cabin she has fond memories of taking my husband to often with his step-dad – that he only remembers seeing once.
My parents, both older, decided to road trip the 1600 miles between our homes, rather than take the easy route of flying. In doing so, they invited my aunt and godfather to come along. Remember the movie “National Lampoon’s Family Vacation”, where the old lady ends up strapped to the roof? That’s the image that went through my mind when I heard of this plan. Six hours after the crew was supposed to leave the northeast for their journey to our southern wedding, mom was just about to step into the shower after finishing loading the car. After promising to call as soon as they were actually headed southbound, she fell out of contact with me for a full 24-hours. Panic time! When one of my maids of honor finally ended up reaching her on her cell phone, she was just then receiving a speeding ticket an hour east of town – nevermind that the previously-planned family dinner to introduce both sides at our house had started an hour before. Needless to say, my side never made dinner, but I did have quite a good time introducing my friends to his side!
Next up was more drama from my side. The day before the wedding dawned a bit overcast, with a forecast of rain. Now, everyone knows that in Texas, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll change. Our out-of-town guests did not realize this simple truth, and so that day also dawned with an early-morning phone call from my mother, urging us to cancel our carefully coordinated rehearsal “Cinco de Mayo” dinner party that involved grilling out. Trying to reason with her that if it did indeed rain, we could move the grill to the edge of the garage did no good – she continued to argue for many precious minutes that we simply needed to cancel – and then perhaps I could just have a quiet dinner with her and dad. No, thanks! Not with the time and money we’d put into planning our special rehearsal dinner-cum-welcome to town party. Thirty minutes later, we were finally able to leave to pick up our special wedding/honeymoon rental car.
A simple task, you say. Right. In our life, even the simple gets complex. While standing in line, we discovered that my mom hadn’t yet finished causing trouble for the day – she called and requested to speak directly to my husband – if she asks to talk to someone other than me, head for cover, she’s gonna blow. Putting off calling her back until Avis was done taking our DNA samples, we came to regret not putting her off longer. Mom decided that with 18 hours to go, the timing was ripe to talk my husband out of marrying me. Her reasons ranged from heredity illnesses our family suffers – cancer and Alzheimer’s to name a few – to just the reasoning of “you don’t know what you’re getting into.” Terrific – and my husband just minutes away from picking up my dad so they could get their tuxes. Dreading the confrontation that might occur in person after ending that horribly upsetting phone call, my husband was instead surprised to see that mom had switched back to her happy personality, and instead expressed how happy she was to see him. Moving forward…
…to the rehearsal itself. When my husband tried to return my dad to their hotel, he found that (a) mom hadn’t given dad a key to the room and (b) she was in such a deep sleep, after putting on the extra security lock, that the front desk couldn’t get them in the room and neither the phone nor pounding on the door could get a response. After 20 minutes, they finally gained access and, we thought, had sucessfully woken my mom up for the day. Not so. After trying to confirm that they had directions to the church all afternoon, I didn’t successfully make contact until 30 minutes prior to the rehearsal – and considering rush hour, their hotel was at least 25 minutes away. In fact, only half of the parties who needed to be present for the rehearsal got there on time – prompting us to hold two rehearsals. The first was for my husband, our pastor and I. Perhaps I should mentioned that this was our pastor’s first wedding, ever. Perhaps you’ll remember the “Holy Goat” from “Four Weddings and a Funeral” – we feared much the same. The second was for everyone else, and started about 45 minutes later, when everyone else finally arrived. Fortunately, after the drama of the day, we went on to an uneventful Cinco de Mayo party and I went on to successfully spend the night in my parent’s suite – success measured by a lack of conflict.
Our final mistake was to believe that everyone would put us first on our own big day, laying aside all other personal agendas. Wrong, again! Being type-A, I provided a complete booklet of schedules and maps for everyone involved with the wedding – where to be when, and how to get there. But at the time when my girls and I were to begin primping at the church prior to the big show, not to mention putting out the decorations, only my hairdresser and I were present. Terrific – this compressed three hairstyles scheduled to last an hour and 45 minutes into just over an hour, and saw the hairdressing start at just about the same time as photography did. Thank God for a terrific hairdresser – she ensured the show got off only 5 minutes late. Next, at the time when my husbands two best friends were supposed to be at our house picking him up to get to the church for pre-ceremony primping and photography of their own, they were instead downtown visiting the farmer’s market. Scared of being too late to the church and deciding his friends were simply on their own to get there, my husband got a ride to the church from one of our neighbors, a man who works as a pizza delivery person in the town where our church is located. (Dominos – we deliver on time or your order is free!) Finally all assembled, the ceremony went perfectly beautifully…
…but the reception did not. After post-ceremony photography went a bit long at the church, we were in a hurry to get the show o the road for the reception. Our caravan successfully lead everyone to the site – except my husband’s two best men – who again found elsewhere to be except where they were supposed to be. Having heard me state that were were having only beer, wine and champagne for our reception, they decided to find a liquor store and spice things up – holding up our announced entry into the reception by almost 45 minutes! Frustration! Once we finally did officially enter, we discovered that while the caterer had managed many of the set-up instructions successfully, and the food looked terrific, they had (a) forgotten to put out our favors, specially designed champagne glasses to be used both for our toast AND as a take-home, (b) forgotten to pre-pour the champagne into said glasses, (c) forgotten to pre-pour wine specially flown in for another special toast in wineglasses and in fact gave the specialty wine to the bar to pour as a regular drink, (d) forgotten to set out a specially designed cocktail napkin at each place setting and supply the rest to the bar, (e) misplaced our engraved carving knife and server, and (f) misplaced our two sets of specialty toasting glasses, one set a gift from his mom, one set a gift from mine. Having supplied very detailed instructions, I was livid! While you’ll see my smiling face in all of our resulting photography, as my husband let people know, I was simply putting on a good show.
All was not lost, however. The food was terrific, we had a great time talking with and dancing with our many out-of-town guests and the song I picked with my dance with dad was so perfect that it brought the crowd to tears. Although in mid-stages of Alzheimer’s, he remembered every word to “What a Wonderful Life” and we both sang along while dancing. Our first dance, to “Bless the Broken Road”, was equally moving, considering the obstacles we hurdled on the way to the show. After leaving during a beautiful sunset while our loved ones tossed white rose petals in our direction, we headed to our hotel to await a special delivery from family of food to eat later in the evening and enough frosty beverages to last both the night and our honeymoon – thank God for the division of the family that actually minimizes drama! After a wonderful night together and a terrific farewell brunch at the hotel, we were off on our roadtrip honeymoon – and our life together, which will never again include planning another wedding!
