Archive for June, 2011

Literary Mileage
Mother of the Bride, Once Removed

Monday, June 20th, 2011

I have two sons, so I never experienced the bride’s side of a wedding until now. In the case of my sons’ marriages, I was advised as the mother of the groom to show up, keep my mouth shut, and wear beige.
Last week I ‘accompanied’ my sister in Florida as Mother of the Bride for her daughter’s wedding on June 18. What a staggering level of detail! We created something of a scene when we bought 120 oranges at a local produce market. (two oranges per welcome bag, plus two waters, pieces of chocolate, two little tubes of sunscreen and a small bottle of Excedrin). We tied 250 bows (half around a fan, half around the handles of a welcome bag for out-of-town guests). We also put 100 pairs of flipflops (white for women, brown for men) into organza bags for guests to slip on when they arrived for the ceremony, which took place on the beach at the Seagate Beach Club, perched between the dunes overlooking the Atlantic.

Linda and Megan, over the last six months, had nailed down every conceivable detail. A close friend acted as wedding coordinator. Even with all the planning and coordination, a few things were beyond their control. Megan had five bridesmaids, two of them nursing mothers of babies born less than a month earlier. Traveling with babies, fitting into their dresses so soon after giving birth, when and how to feed the babies…All required strategic planning.

The biggest unknown was Florida’s summer weather. Thunderstorms in the summer were forecast every day of the week, including the 18th. So, 24 hours before the wedding, Linda decided to rent a tent, just in case. Good decision. There was no rain or even searing sunshine. But the tent created an intimate ‘feel’ for the event. If you’ll pardon the nautical pun, it helped put us all in the same boat—in some sense to bind all of us together in the mutual responsibility to support this couple in their new life together.

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