A Family Wedding

Friday, March 20th…the ides of March bring chilly sunshine and cold wind, as my daughter hauls me and her little daughter from shop to shop in a round of last minute shopping before her wedding.   Then when we return home, we try different ways of putting up her hair.  She has requested a style she remembers from when she was in high school and I had put up her hair for a school dance.  It has been at least 15 years since I played hair-dresser/lady’s maid for my daughter.  We finally settle on an up-swept style with cascading curls.

The previous week, she and a friend had experimented with hair coloring (my child’s natural color is strawberry-blond, but she doesn’t find that dramatic enough), and it went somewhat astray which occasioned a trip to a professional hair dresser.   The result is a red that is unfamiliar to me, as I wind measured locks of hair into Shirley Temple pincurls.  As I comb it, I remember my mother’s hands in my hair, I remember watching her put her own hair up in similar curls.  My mother’s hair was a deep auburn and curled agressively.  She remarked once that it was going to curl regardless of what she did, and she needed to do something to discipline the way in which it curled.  My own hair was a much darker chestnut color (it is white now), and has only a hint of curl–just enough to be annoying when the weather is damp.  

As we talk, and I pin, her friend and matron of honor is struggling with icing layers of wedding cake.  The powdered sugar icing is reacting badly to the weather (the same weather that is working well for creating curls on my daughter’s head), the warmth and humidity of the kitchen causing the mixture to run instead of setting up as it should.  It is frustrating, but no one is really upset about it.

We talk of a number of things, including how my mother had been the family hair-dresser for many years.  I have brought various peices of jewelry with me to fulfill the “something borrowed” part of the traditional wedding garb.  I think, as I curl and pin of how my mother’s hands had shaped so many memories for myself, my daughter and my aunt.   Mama did not have a pacific temperament, and she usually needed to put the hairstyle together in a hurry, and get on with other things.  Hence, all three of us remember words like “hold still”, “stop wiggling”, “I’m going to have this curl over your nose if you keep turning your head”, and finally the moments when she totally lost her cool, and smacked her wiggling hair-dressee over the head with the comb or brush.  I elected to wear four rings for my daughter to choose from for “something borrowed”, and
they flash in and out of my child’s hair as I comb and pin.  On my left hand are my own rings:  an old wedding band that will no longer fit my ring finger, as out-grown as the marriage itself.  My high-school classring (always a bit too big) on my ring finger.   On my right hand, an artificial star-saphire set in sterling on the pointer finger, and my mother’s classring on my ring finger.  They appear and disappear as my hands move in and out of my daughter’s hair.  
    
At last, all of her thick hair is pin-curled, the house-hold children (all five of them), are bathed and in bed; my daughter also heads for bed, muttering about losing childhood memories due to the “pins stuck straight into my brain”.  I grab a shower myself, and sit at the computer for a short while.  Lack of sleep prevents much in the way of writing, so I lie down on the couch.

Suddenly, an alarm blares out in the night.  Startled, I reach for my alarm clock, but can’t find it.  Then I hear the grooms voice (they are formalizing a relationship of 4 years standing) answering the phone.   I orient myself, coming up out of the fog of sleep, and realizing where I am.  The phone call is his mother telling him that she might be a little after 8:00 opening doors for him to start the roast and ham cooking.  The reception is to be a bring-a-dish meal; guests are not expected to bring gifts.  As my daughter put it, “Mom, we’ve been together for four years.  We combined two households.  We don’t need a lot of stuff because we already have most of the household things we need.”

Soon, the excited household is awake.  The groom loads two roasting pans, 2 hams, a pork roast, wedding gear for himself, the ring-bearer (his son), one of the junior groom’s men (my daughter’s son), the two boys, and a baritone horn into the family van.  He drives away to start the meat cooking and to seek breakfast for the three of them.

With the men-folk out of the house, I start hot water for tea and oatmeal while my daughter finds ibuprophen for me to head off the migraine that is beginning to manifest.  She, the girls and I take a quiet half hour to have breakfast.   She finds various things that she needs to take, and begins a stack near the door.

At 9:00 am, I begin sculpting in hair.  The goal is a pile of curls on top, with loose curls cascading down behind.  I begin with the top curls, re-curling, re-pinning, and winding a string of faux pearls through her hair.  Just as I expected, most of the curls seem to wind up on the right side of her head; I balance the mass with a pink, silk rose on the left.  Just as I am finishing this part, my oldest son calls.  He, his wife and their daughter (my oldest grand daughter), have spent the night at a motel near-by.  He would like to take just me (not the tribe) to breakfast at 11:00, when they have checked out of their room.  I readily agree, knowing that the reception meal is likely to be the next opportunity to eat, and that this will be my only opportunity to visit with my son and his family. I complete my daughter’s coiffure; she checks it in the mirror.  We adjust a couple of small things, but over-all the effect is good.  She sits down to put on her make-up, while the girls, who have been watching a movie, begin to collect their things.

The little flower girl (my daughter’s baby), begins to dance around her mother.  “When can I put on my green dress,” she says, “I want to wear my pretty dress.”  
“Soon,” I tell her.  “You don’t want to put it on now, it will get all dirty.”
    
“But I want to put it on now,” she insists.

Her mother, deeply involved in making sure that clothing is packed for five children for a week-long stay with freinds and relatives (so the bridal couple can have a honey-moon without small fry), and making sure that all the accouterments for the ceremony are assembled and ready to load, speaks sharply to the excited little girl.  The older girls (the groom’s daughters) are getting things together, also excited but actively helping.  I make an executive decision.  “I’ll take little Miss Priss with me,” I say.  “I think it will make life easier.”

So saying, I loaded a good portion of my stuff that would need to go with me at the end of the day, checked to make sure that the cooler and canned soda that was planned for the reception was in the truck, and took my bouncy five-year-old grand daughter to the vehicle.  I met with my oldest and his family at the business center where the wedding was to take place, and leaving my truck, I rode with them to a small restaurant where we had breakfast.

By the time we returned, the matron of honor and the groom’s mother (the wedding was taking place in a small reception area at her work place), were busily curling the older girls’ hair.  I left the little flower girl with them, and my daughter-in-law and I went out to the kitchenette to prepare salad and salad plates.

With that finished, it was nearing time.  Guests were beginning to arrive, the small office was a bustling with last minute costume adjustments, finding important items that had been misplaced, and all the business of getting a wedding started on time.  At 1:50, all was in place for a 2:00 wedding.  The bride and matron-of-honor stepped outside for a cigarette before the ceremony.  I look at my daughter.  “NOT today, Mom,” she says.  “At the price these things are getting to be, I am thinking about quitting, but NOT today.”  

At 2:02, we line up the small wedding procession.   First, the flower girl, my daughter’s baby.  Next, the ring-bearer, the groom’s son.   They are followed by my daughter’s son with the groom’s oldest daughter on one arm, and the daugther of the matron-of-honor and the best man on the other arm.  Next, is the matron of honor and best man’s son escorting the groom’s youngest daughter.  Behind them are the matron of honor and the best man (stategically placed to keep an eye on their son).  Finally, the bride, escorted by her oldest brother and her mother.   The little girls are dressed in fresh spring green dresses (suitable for later wear to parties or church), the matron of honor is wearing a slim-line emerald green beaded sheath, I am wearing a lime-green sweater and matching skirt with lime-green and chocolate swirls.  The men in the wedding
party are wearing navy slacks, blue shirts and navy blue ties.  The bride is wearing a cream colored gown with a sequined over-jacket.

She looks lovely, as she takes her place beside the groom.  The ring bearer has arrived with the rings, the little girls stand still, and the boys stand pretty still.  The ceremony opens without a hitch, the vows are said.  There was is a momentary pause while two blue roses made of wood are located; then the ceremony resumes as the couple exchange the roses.  The elderly pasteur from the groom’s childhood church pronounces them married.  After the ceremony, there is a quick round of formal pictures, including a very chilly session in the gazebo (where the wedding had originally been scheduled to take place).   
    
Guests and bridal party then assemble in the reception area where a small feast of “best dishes” are laid out.  There is roast pork and ham; a vat of potato salad, cookies, truffles, three or four kinds of salad and other goodies.  The bride gets out her lap top and downloads the pictures from the photographer, promising a dvd for me after they returned from the honey moon.  I turn over to her the video camera I had been using.  After a reminder or two, they get around to cutting the cake (which turned out just fine, in spite of the icing problem.  Yeah, it was a little over-done in a place or two, but not bad.)  They open gifts; yes, there were a few people who just couldn’t resist the tradition.

Guests begin to pack up and go home.  The groom’s mother, the matron-of-honor and I began the clean-up process.  The junior guests and wedding party members run wild in the field outside.  At 4:30, I drive over to my daughter and son-in-law’s home for a last minute pet-check and to pick up some things I had left there.  We find the missing cat, double-checked the grandkids’ hamsters to make sure they have plenty of food and water, check the dogs (the groom’s mother would do a daily check while the bridal pair were gone), I pick up my clothing, and at 5:00 I  am headed back toward home, feeling a tiny sense of loss and worry, and a lot of hope for my little girl who had long ago moved out of my home, but never out of my heart.