Tying Of The Knot

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning at Dr. & Mrs. S’s home to begin our day. We got out of bed a little after 7:00am, and her parents were already gone to attend to other wedding-related business.

I had stayed in a room with my old roommate KW, and we were waking up to shower when our friends from the house party burst in, wound-up from a fiasco at the Holiday Inn. Before they told me anything, they made sure it would be covered in the New(York)Comer. I assured them it would, and they proceeded to explain to KW and I an animated story of their evening, which included but was not limited to; shattered glass and banging noises in the room above them, an uninformed hotel desk clerk, and the four of them holding hands for dear life in the same bed. My head hadn’t even stopped spinning from all of them talking with such elaborate hand gestures, and I turned around and they were asleep in the bed I had just got out of. (All four of them, obviously.)

In the midst of our morning, the doorbell rang, and there stood a woman from the local bakery carrying fresh pastries, for which we abandoned our preparations and stopped to eat. J gave each of us gifts, which included personalized stationary. If you know anything about me at all, it’s that I love a good letterhead.

After the breakfasting and gift-receiving, we made our way across town to get our hair done. At one point my friend BF pointed out that watching J get her hair done was like watching that scene at Trudy’s salon in Steel Magnolias where Shelby talks about her wedding while her hair is teased in all directions. We may have been born in the 80’s, but thank goodness we didn’t have to get married in the same decade as poofy bangs and stirrup pants. Some of Mrs. S’s friends had prepared lunch for us, so we got to sit, chat and eat for hours amidst the hairspray and bobby-pinning.

Somewhere in the middle of the day we commented on the fact that the groom and his male friends and family had been playing golf all morning and would only have to shower and put on their suits to get ready for the wedding. They have no idea, do they?

We went back to the S’s house in the early afternoon to do our make-up and put on our dresses. We had all made a new friend- JA, who was a friend of the groom’s from college, and she became our make-up artist for the afternoon. I think one of the primary reasons women plan formal events is just for the occasion of dressing-up.

We finally made it back to the farm for the fourth and final stage of wedding-day preparations: the dressing of the bride. JS is no stranger to the limelight- she once ate a yard of conies from Sonic in front of a captivated audience. At her bachelorette party she entertained an entire restaurant while leading a Conga line with a tambourine through the tables and dancing on stage with the Mariachi band. This is only a small part of her charm- trust me. Anyway- we watched her slip on her beautiful lace gown and got to sit with her through all her pre-wedding emotions.

The ceremony was beautiful and as bridesmaids we were fortunate enough to have the sun on our backs- whenever I found myself getting sentimental during the ceremony I would just watch the groomsmen, who were playing a squinting game of hiding behind each others’ heads to avoid the sun’s glare. We took pictures afterward, and ate barbeque under the stars while table-hopping to get a chance to see our old pals.

JS, being no stranger to the dance floor, had a costume change before the musical portion of the evening started. She traded her lace gown for a short, strapless little white number and a pair of cowboy boots, and we spent the rest of the night in a scene reminiscent to most of our college date parties: girls dancing, guys elsewhere. We sent the happy couple off in a whirlwind of sparklers and an old Mustang convertible, and since most of my friends are now part of the workforce, everyone was exhausted by 10:00pm. We don’t get out much.

A few of us stayed the night with the S’s and woke up early Sunday morning to the smell of breakfast cooking downstairs. We stumbled (gracefully) downstairs with squinty faces to see who on earth was awake, and found JS’s parents in the kitchen, her mother frying bacon and eggs and her father reading the paper and entertaining their 14-month-old granddaughter. It seemed just like any other morning- as if they were just getting up to go to church like any other Sunday. They were chipper and eager to get us fed and caffeinated for our drive home, so we ate and drank and wondered how on earth they could rebound so quickly from such a huge event. I need to find out what kind of vitamins they take.

It was quite the weekend, obviously. I arrived home Sunday, went to Dripping Springs, Texas with my Mom, her friends and sisters, to enjoy a quiet girls’ night away and take a cooking class. I love to cook, and had never taken a class before so I thought it was a blast. Give me a food processor and well-sharpened knives and I’m one happy camper. I also never get to spend that much time with my mom and her entourage, so I got to listen in on their chatting, which was not (shockingly) all about their kids, as I think we all selfishly assume. I love the little things we get from our mothers, like the way SR and her mother have the same sparkling blue eyes and say “salsa” with the same soft “z”, how MK and her mother ask the same introspective questions with the same concerned countenance, how RW has the same killer smile as her mother and how my cousin KH has the same laugh and sweet disposition as my aunt.

Needless to say, it was a great, long weekend. There’s so much still to report…

We’ll get to that later

“What are you doing the rest of your life? North and South and East and West of your life, I have only one request of your life, that you spend it with me.”
- Alan & Marilyn Bergman