#wedding

When Jack was just a baby, we took him to a convention of barbershop singers in Nashville, which my father helped coordinate as part of his job. All of my siblings attended– the youngest three were also working the convention, and we oldest two were just audience-members. My middle sister’s college boyfriend at the time came along, and he spent the entire convention hanging with the family. He held my baby, he ate lunch with the siblings, he told jokes and hung out with us all.  He was engaged, interested, and fun, with all of us – that is, all of us but her. It was quite odd. He ostensibly came to support her, but seemed disinterested in seeing her at all, and never looked at her when she did swing by between work shifts to see him. (Although he is not a long-term part of this story, I’ll put down for the record that I’m pretty sure he was gay and in denial.) From her exasperated reactions to this behavior, it was clear that she had been dealing with the odd blend of outward commitment and close-up disinterest for quite a while, and she was reaching the end of the line.

And waiting on the other side of the line was Justin.

They’d known each other maybe a year or so, as work colleagues. They ran in the same circle of friends, and he had been in love with her for (I would guess) a good bit of that time. He waited – patient, attentive, cultivating a deep and mutually engaged friendship. She eventually learned the romantic feelings at the heart of his outwardly “friendly” gestures. Her short-lived relationship with the boyfriend, who was supposed to love her, consisted of him fending off emotional intimacy with small talk and social niceties while never actually looking her in the eye. Justin, meanwhile, was laying the foundation for the close and loving relationship that she craved. To put it plainly, he was simply interested in her. He remembered her nail polish color, arranged flowers on her last day of work, noted her favorite movie. He found her interesting, worthy of his time and attention.

They married on Saturday, in a brilliant emerald green field, before an intimate collection of family and friends, lit by twinkle lights and love and the suffused light of an overcast Tennessee spring day.

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Last week was hectic – Tuesday saw us attending a baseball game, guests of a local business group, enjoying free hot dogs and beer and making small talk as the sun went down over the field. Our team was so far ahead, we eventually made our way home after the 7^th inning stretch. The game was gratis, but the babysitter was charging by the hour. We grabbed a little baseball onesie for my new baby niece on our way out the stadium gate, then Prof took the babysitter home while I collected and packed our bags. Cake knife – Check! Bridesmaid dress – Check! Boys’ suspenders – Check!

Wednesday, the Prof had to grade papers late into the evening, and I got the boys fed and in bed, then zipped up the suitcases, cleaned out the fridge, stacked our items-to-pack by the door. The Prof loaded the car when he got back, and we were ready for an early-morning start north.

We woke the boys early on Thursday, and clipped them in their car seats with pjs still on. “Today’s the day!” said Jack. “In’na watch-a moooobeeee?” said Craig. I loaded a movie in the van DVD player, filled a travel mug of coffee, and we were off before 6:30 am. The journey was long, with many stops, but we eventually made it around 4:00 pm – just enough time for me to zip through the shower before the bachelorette party.

My mother hosted the groom’s family for dinner that night, with fried chicken and catfish and a vat of butter beans that would feed an army. Meanwhile, my three sisters and I went out for burgers and karaoke, along with about 20 of her closest friends – all bedecked in fake “Team Bride” tattoos and beads (including one guy, who gamely draped himself in pink accessories.) Dressed in her hot pink veil and bride sash, my sister attracted a lot of attention from bar-goers – plenty of high fives and “good lucks” and even a few shots. She sang a pretty sassy rendition of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe,” complete with high kicks and a mic drop, and then we dragged her home, happy and cruising for a truly spectacular hangover.

Friday we had a date at a nearby nail salon. I treated myself to a pedicure – worth it just for the leg massage and massage chair. The guy actually scratched my legs (with gloved hands), like scratching your back, and I nearly fainted from how awesome it felt. My nail guy was from New Orleans, so we had a few chats about local schools and life in the city. He was a Katrina evacuee who never made it back home, but wanted to return one day.

The rehearsal was planned for 4:30, so we had a little time after our nails were done.  We went home and heated up the leftover fried chicken and catfish, then had a long chatty lunch and a little birthday party for Jack and his Uncle Randy (who share the same birthday, 21 years apart). I ironed the boys’ shirts and the others took naps and ran errands and relaxed until it was time to go rehearse. We headed up to the venue and met the preacher, who ably ran the rehearsal with The Swiftness since rain threatened, and then we all headed into part of the historic home for dinner – a selection of pastas and lots of champagne which the bride, still feeling her bachelorette excess, could barely smell without turning green.

That night, we stuffed favor bags (S’mores fixings, with a tag that said “take home s’more love”), then all went early to bed. A good night’s sleep cured everyone’s ills, and Saturday dawned under concerningly thunderstormy conditions. We all kept one skeptical eye on the sky, while spending way too much time making quadruple sure that everything was logistically sound, vis a vis cars and people with rides and stuff being picked up and dropped off and transferred and all of the bustle that people do on Big Emotional Days that lets them run away a little bit from the Big Feelings, which they will process later when they’ve got a quiet space to assimilate it all.

The girls headed up first, arriving at 11 am, and noting with relief that the sky, while not clear, did not look like rain so much as pleasing sun cover, designed for the comfort of guests who would otherwise be exposed to its beating rays. We readied ourselves in a historic old house, spending the bulk of the day in an upstairs suite of rooms, sequestered and primping (as bridal parties tend to do). The men arrived, and dressed in their own area in a separate wing of the house.  During the prep time, the bridesmaids wore silky monogrammed robes – our bridesmaid gifts – and traipsed all over the historic home, draping flowers and artfully arranging shoes and making sure every detail of the fleeting day was captured on film.  We got a picture of the sisters’ ring fingers, except my rings don’t fit (they haven’t for six months, and I need to just give up and get them sized up already).  So – don’t tell – the bride wore her engagement ring and I grabbed her wedding ring and wore it, since I could get it on.  We set up shoes for a shot, hung the dress in a tree for a shot, styled the rings, styled the flowers – the whole nine yards.  It was fun. Then we dressed and more pictures were taken – pinning the groomsmen’s flowers, pinning the veil, dealing with the eleventy zillion fiddly little buttons on the dress.

The bride (fully recovered and feeling 100% at this point) was radiant in a full skirted, strapless dress with a lace jacket and my very own veil (now worn by three sisters in the family!) Eventually, the pictures were taken, the guests had arrived, and the time came – the little boys arrived and were dressed in their black suspenders and red bowties, and the Baby Girl Niece wore her confection of a floofy white dress and her own red bowtie perched on her little bald head as a hair bow.

Though the sky was heavy with clouds, the rain still held off, and the call was made that the short ceremony could stay outside in the garden, under a flower-bedecked arbor, but the cocktail hour would move inside just to be safe.  As the music began and the first mother was escorted to her place, a few drops pitter patted here and there.   My mother gave the sky the fiercest glare, but the sky ignored her threats, and the drops increased. The little boys walked down the grassy aisle through a garden gate, with Craig marching his little bow-tied self through the gate and then firmly closing it on his brothers. I was the first bridesmaid to walk, and the drops fell on my carefully coiffured hair and beaded up on my flowers, and I smiled at the rows upon rows of friends and family, sitting cheerfully under a smattering of multi-colored umbrellas, each guest committed to the idea that a little light rain never hurt anybody.

As the drops fell heavy on the Book of Common Prayer and curled its onion-skin pages, the minister confidently led the ceremony and we six attendants stood under a light misting rain that blessedly never turned into a downpour. I watched the radiant bride weep (with joy) through her vows and hold tight to the hands of her steady groom. Afterwards, the guests hurried to the cocktail hour inside, and the wedding party stood on the porch under the eaves of the house and took relatively dry group pictures. The rain had already dried up by the time we’d finished and headed to join the party, and so the reception (held at the same place, but inside a large out-building) benefited from the indoor-outdoor nature of the venue – a large lit gazebo and courtyard outside, and a beautifully lit room with seating and dancing. The kids had a kid station on a rug at the edge of the room, where coloring books and crayons and various other items had been set out for them. There were also numerous glow sticks, which the kids had me crack and hand out, and which eventually were linked together to form a giant jump rope/limbo “stick,” which lent much frivolity and playfulness to the affair. (Adults were behind this bit of creativity – two guys organized jump rope and limbo competitions, which were pretty awesome.)

The crowd danced like crazy and the boys jumped right in the mix – Jack was James-Brown-ing it up, his legs going nuts like while his top half was largely still. Several people commented about Jack’s dancing – so, like, do I know my kid or what? Liam actually surprised me at one point by performing some pretty legitimate breakdance moves, including that one where you lay on your side and “run” in a circle in place, your body spinning on the ground like the hands of a clock. Where on earth did he learn that? Craig just stomped around like the uncoordinated jolly beast he is, but he wore his red bow tie the entire night, sweet thing, although he ditched his shoes early on.

We snuck out and decorated the couple’s car with shoe polish, then pelted the happy couple with birdseed as they headed off into life together (and an immediate honeymoon in Orlando, followed by another trip later this year to Paris). We packed out the venue, headed home, arriving shortly after 11 (early wedding, early end-time). My mother poured me an absolutely gigantic glass of white wine, which I really needed and lingered over a while, before crashing out in bed. The next day we had yet one more event to host – the out-of-town family all came over for some fruit and Danishes and sub sandwiches, and we got in some more visiting and chatting before everyone had to scatter back home.

I’m typing this in the car as we drive south toward home. It’s tough to be so far from family, and I never feel it moreso than times like this. We were a Norman Rockwell painting of “family wedding,” complete with three happy generations – the newest toddling around and gathering benevolent attention, the middle getting in laughs and ribbing siblings in between chasing kids and running wedding errands, and the oldest presiding over their brood of happy, healthy progeny. It could not have been a more life-affirming, joyful long weekend, for the incredibly joyful reason that my sister and her One True Love were being celebrated.  Welcome to the family, Justin.  You were already part of it, but now you’re legally stuck with us.  😉  We couldn’t be happier to have locked you down, and it could not have been a better weekend to celebrate the joining of our two families.  #wedding2016 on the books.