So we’re planning another wedding. We have four daughters and this will be our fourth wedding. Two daughters and a son have gone before. All in birth order, I don’t know why that pleases me so much but it does. The first was a long distance away from us and so she braved most of it alone, which makes me sad, but proud. She was efficient and stuck to a budget that she prepared, asking all those who love her if they wished to contribute to simply say yes to the aspects they were interested in paying for, and she and her future spouse would either pay for or eliminate that which was not taken. Smart girl, this plan worked very well. Hurricane Katrina and my job thousands of miles away, in a not for profit disaster services organization made for more difficulties in being there for her. But we managed, she kept me informed each step of the way and chose a venue that made things easier by catering, hosting, and having a florist on site. All that was left really, were the million little details that fall to we MOBs during the week that leads up to the nuptials. Hosting gatherings, attending last minute fittings, making sure groomsmen had tuxes and shoes then endless trips to the airport to pick up siblings and other guests. This last, falling to the Captain as he was most willing to perform any task that did not involve hair, make-up, nails, shoes, flowers or conflict.
On the day of the wedding I didn’t get a shower. This was not planned but simply evolved from being too heavily relied upon by my other daughters, the bridesmaids and their endless hours at the salon setting their hair. After each one was finished I drove them back to the venue to get ready so by the time the last one was out the door, I had barely enough time to get back there myself and run a comb through my hair, spray it to within an inch of its life and carry on. Luckily I had received a perm about four days earlier and you know how great your hair can look on the second day after a wash in those early weeks, that’s how I pulled that off. There was in place a make-up artist of such extraordinary talent that he made the physonogamy of a fifty year old look pretty darn good. They served a great many mimosas during the getting dressed portion of the event and when admonished heartily by the darling bride not to get drunk on her wedding day, I should have shown greater shame upon my retort which was “Sorry, too late.” The tiny little things that can go wrong are all, at all costs to be kept from the bride. Many times we hissed this phrase “Just fix it, don’t tell her.” It worked well until the officiant stumbled on a tent hook and broke her wrist about 20 minutes before the ceremony. Not only did we not have the opportunity to not tell the bride, she witnessed it. All sober comportment, she did not fall apart but asked for a plan and forged on.
I would follow this daughter into battle for she fears nothing. Once her plan is undertaken it will move on to completion and woe betide those who strive to the contrary. The lovely minister conducted the ceremony, in between the profane outbursts from the man in the upstairs apartment whose video game was clearly not a winning undertaking, went to the ER and returned in time to enjoy some food, drink and a little dance, thanks no doubt to the good painkillers. My only concern about the entire affair was that it seemed too short and we worried that our beautiful daughter didn’t really have fun because she was so worried about it all being perfect. They have been married for 10 years have two kids and seem very happy. Both of the next two weddings in our family took place within five months while she was pregnant with the little man who is now four.
The story of our second daughter’s wedding would make most mothers say no, never again, write them a check and ask them to leave the house. Until the wedding day, which was perfect. I mean movie style, Oscar winning for set direction (thanks to the Captain) full-on gorgeous. She informed us they had picked a date, it was four months away. And they’d like to get married at home. In four months. Go outside right now and look at your house and garden and think about what you’d need to do to host a wedding. In four months. Fall is a wonderful time of year replete as it is with colors and light and the possibility of snow, sleet, freezing rain, or just plain rain.
The Captain looked about our place and made certain decisions about what should be done to turn our home into a wedding venue. His first observation was that we needed to paint. All the exterior doors. So he removed them. All of them. All at once. In taking down the big one in the front hall he dropped it and broke the banister to the stairs. Add that to the list of little things to do. We live on a hill in the country and are exposed on all sides to wind and weather, as are most folks when you remove all the exterior doors to their houses. He hung heavy plastic where all the doors used to be and taped that to the door frames with duct and painter’s tape to keep out the elements. He drove the doors to the local auto body shop and at my instruction told them to paint the exterior of these doors with a high gloss paint and the interior with a satin finish latex. While somewhat concerned about the afore-mentioned wind and weather my need for nocturnal security in his absence was met with a nod from the Captain to the french doors (or rather the spot where they used to be) out to the patio. He described how easy it has always been for anyone with a mind to, to break in. Knowing that and my propensity for deep and impermeable sleep was not helpful. I lived for a month in a constant state of hyper-alert ism, like a war veteran always ready for a fight. I locked my bedroom door at night safe in the thought that at least the burglars would have to fight to get in, and that would wake me up in time to grab my cell phone, now lying ever-present next to me and pre-dialed to 911, so that all I had to do was hit send, which I had learned to find in the dark for just such occasions. Every morning I came downstairs to re-tape the plastic at the doorways, there were five of them, and carried on as if this were a perfectly normal way to live.
When the Captain brought the doors home for re-installation, of course the auto body shop (they’re made of steel who better to paint them?) had the wrong paint on each side, so we had these super shiny glossy doors on the inside of the house and a comparatively dull sheen on the outside. He took them back, we waited another week, then lived with the smell of fresh paint for another two weeks. You can still see a great deal of daylight around the one in the mudroom, which the Captain ascribes to shrinkage!
Now two weeks from the wedding we began in earnest to watch the long range weather forecast, we booked an alternate venue just in case. The tent delivery folks assured us their tent was totally weather proof. “You could have a funeral in a tornado in there.” said he. I did not ask. They arrived on Thursday, the wedding planned for Sunday. We notified all the neighbors who might be complicit in any type of auditory or olfactory disturbance whether that be the dog kennel across the road or the pig farmer down wind of the garden. We called them and told them about the ceremony, what time it would be and sorry for the loud music, promised it would all be over by 10:00pm. I definitely told our closest neighbor and he had a clear vision of the huge tent to tip him off.
Shortly after the tent was delivered and set up we took notice of the enormous and hideously ugly plastic lanterns that had been hung therein. One could easily have performed micro surgery under those lights, not only were they offensive to the eye but so bright as to warrant the issue of sunglasses to our assembled guests, should they wish to witness any aspect of the proceedings. Out they came. Christmas lights were procured on October 8th from every hardware store in a ten mile radius and strung gallantly by all the male members of our family and our family to be. Two engineers in this midst so the need for precision and extension cords was a thing to behold. My favorite aspect of the setting up was listening to my son and his brother in law discussing the attachment of wheat sheaves to the backs of all the chairs. They were patient and funny, getting all the bows tied just so for a sister who is detail oriented to say the least and not famous for keeping a decision once made.
All effort paid off as I watched my beautiful daughter, sublime and confident as she walked arm in arm with her dad around the long brick sidewalk to the beautifully painted front door where she married her love to the strains of braying donkeys and a lawn mower! My grand daughter filled her diaper with an appalling velocity and volume and my third daughter burst into tears of joy as well as laughter. It was a small, intimate, wonderful day that we will all cherish for so many reasons beyond the simple joining of two. It was the creativity of sisters who supported our nervous Nelly through it all with some nail polish and a little champagne, it was my darling husband who sees those shiny doors in every photograph and wishes he’d had time to paint the porch posts as well. And it was the teamwork of a small community to help us pull it all off. My neighbor who started mowing his lawn at the exact moment the procession began, says to this day that he is afraid of me. Use your imagination. My neighbors who raise miniature donkeys could not have known how much that hilarious braying, just as vows were exchanged meant to our memories of the day. It is all that and more that fills me with joy as we plan the next one, another one at home. And as we wonder what the last child, another daughter, will do, I wish for a home wedding one last time and the Captain is ready with a cash incentive to elopement.
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