Final Update: The Wedding!

I’ve been mulling for a few days…

What can I say about being Mother of the Bride that is

profound

practical

witty

and/or

enlightening?

I’m either in too much of a glow because things went well

or still so worn out from a frenetic week

to bestow wedding-changing MOB wisdom (if I even have any);

therefore, my best advice is this:

You’re the mom,

but she’s the bride.

This is her dream, not yours.

Trust her

when it’s time to select the MOB dress

and her own.

Trust her instincts on the bridesmaids dresses, too, and her shoes with lucky blue bows.

She gets final call on what her nephew sports.

 Up or down with the hair?  The bride knows best.

When it comes to her dad’s bow tie,

the design of the cake,

the added touches to the back of her dress,

the napkin fabric and the menu design,

the paper lanterns to brighten the ceiling and the flowers to grace the tables,

she gets to decide because, after all, isn’t this the daughter who, when it was time to pick a groom, made an excellent choice?

May they have happy days, festive nights, and in time, the pitter patter of energetic little feet.

But don’t tell the bride I mentioned that last pitter patter part.

I promised her I’d trust her instincts on that, too.

Laura and Matt were married on June 1 in the chapel on Bald Head Island off the coast of North Carolina.  Wedding photos courtesy Matron of Honor Katherine Younger and wedding guest and blog reader, Lisa Wolfe.

Wedding Update: Advice for the Back of the Church

Years ago, my girls and I watched a TV show called  A Wedding Story. 

One day, when Kath had a friend over, I heard her announce:  “Listen to my mom during the show. She’s going to pick at everything. She thinks the only good wedding ever was her own.”

Not true!

Well at least not all the way true.

But isn’t it sort of okay for a bride to be partial to her own wedding?

Now it’s Laura’s turn.

I’m resisting giving lots of last minute advice.

And as mother of the bride, I won’t be there at the very last minute anyway.

Hopefully, I’ll be in my seat in the front pew.

However…

My last minute advice would be twofold:

Put your bouquet at your waist and keep it there.

Brides often carry their bouquets too high, covering the bodice of their lovely gown.

(I made this mistake, which proves, once and for all, that my wedding was NOT perfect.)

My other piece of advice is this:

The time at the back of the church is a dad’s moment too.

Remember the cool bike in fourth grade.

The Duke jacket I thought cost too much.

The checking out colleges trips.

The emergency earring repairs.

Right before you start down the aisle, say something sweet to your dad.

If I could sail back to August 20, 1977, that’s just what I would do.

Top Photo:  My dad helping me out of the car at my wedding in Towson, Maryland.

Bottom Photo: The mother of the groom-to-be with her father at the back of the church in Durham, New Hampshire some years ago.  Note that the bride is holding her bouquet correctly!

In some traditions, both parents walk their daughter down the aisle. To those daughters, I say, “Double your chance to say something sweet!”

A Wedding/Menopause TMI Post

My friend Carol Baldwin says I sometimes write about gutsy stuff  (which I’m hoping is a compliment, Carol). Since she has a daughter’s wedding coming up, I’m dedicating this post to her!

The purse above is the purse I carried on Katherine’s big day.

For Laura’s upcoming nuptials, I thought it would be fun to get a new one.

But alas, pennies are spilling from our pocketbooks like lucky rice tossed into the wedding wind.

Carrying the same purse again would save a few of those pennies.

And the silver sequins match the silver beads on my royal blue dress.

So I plucked the purse off my closet shelf.

Look what I found tucked  inside…

A tampon and two safety pins.

Don’t need that tampon anymore.

Toss it to the wind!

So…

My encouraging words for those of you in the throes of iffy, spotty, who-knows-when periods or still having plain old here-it-is-again periods:

You’ll get your chance to smile when you see a tampon tucked inside an old purse.

And that, Dearly Beloved, will be a day to celebrate!

P.S. The safety pins are coming along with me. I’m in charge of bustling the dress. Olga, the wedding dress rescuer who created the bustle, demonstrated the process to me.  Be still my spinning head.

If worse comes to worse, I’ll abandon the hooks and eyes and just pin up the fluffs of tulle.  That’s my plan, but of course, I haven’t mentioned this to the bride…

Wedding Update: A Dress and a Fox

In the last post, I bemoaned my missing waist.

But in terms of a rehearsal dinner dress, the story has a happy ending.

You know the feeling. You already love something. You pray your shopping consultant agrees.

Time freezes as you wait for the pronouncement.

“I like it!” the bride-to-be said.

Yes!

(Point here being that sheath dresses work well on women of a certain age.)

The dress fits much better than any I tried on.

But…

What pleases me most are the polka dots!

I’m pretending they’re champagne bubbles.

We’ll toast our guests and  the bride and groom and the groom’s lovely parents, who are hosting the party.

To love!

To life!

To families!

Back to the dress.

Yes, it disguises my lack of a waist.

But no, I don’t look as foxy as the model in the picture.

I don’t need to.

Bald Head Island, setting for the wedding, has real foxes!

Cliff and I sometimes spot one on the road that runs the length of the island.

A lucky camera person spotted the fox below right on the beach.

(Give the video about eight seconds for the fox to appear; until then, listen to the swooshing of the waves.)

To the waves!

To the sand!

To the fox!

And once again, as always, to life!