Thursday, November 30, 2006

My STD

O so many thanks to Toni The Reader for designing our "save the date" cards, which are beautiful, but which came in an attachment romantically titled: "MB-STD."

Clearly, not what I expected-- but then again, little is regarding this wedding... including the groom. Little girls who grow up in the white Catholic ghetto of Cincinnati's West Side marry other West Siders. So let it be written. So let it be done. I have always envisioned a full-Mass marriage with several dress-fitting sessions in a local bridal salon as my sister and mother clasped their hands at the sight of the baby in bridal white. Instead, last week I found myself wearing the ring of a Lutheran, stomping past palm trees on my way into a fabric shop to return fourteen yards of the wrong shade of chiffon.

"My wedding," Carah The BFFE said to me in exhaustion about a year ago, "is nothing like I thought it would be." And I made sympathetic bridesmaid noises, which was my primary job at that point, and thought, "Well, how could that be? It's her wedding." But now the bridal slipper is upon my foot, and I see, I see: One minute you're at some distant cousin's reception, jumping up and down to Kool and the Gang on a fake wooden dance floor in Mary Janes, and the next you're staring down at a caterer's catalogue featuring a stack of artfully arranged Moon Pies because the glitter icing is backordered and outside the budgetary realm anyway.

Our ideas cling even as the life that spun them changes. Mentally I have officially asked Julie The NephewsMama to be my matron of honor in a crying conversation in which we apologized for torn stuffed animals past and pledged our sisterly devotion 4Evah, but the actual conversation went as follows at our extended family's Thanksgiving dinner table:

ME: Oh, I--

JULIE: Hmmmmm?

JIM THE SMALL CHILD NEPHEW: Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?

ME: I wanted to--

JIM: Mommy--

JULIE: Just a minute, please. I'm talking to Aunt Beth.

ME: I meant--

JULIE: James, do not eat the centerpiece.

ME: --ask you earlier, but it--

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD FOUR SEATS DOWN THE TABLE: wwwwwwaaaaaaahhhhHHHHH....

JULIE: Oh, okay.

ME:... matron of honor?

JULIE: I'm sorry, what?

JIM: No!

ME: The--

JULIE: Sure.

But you know what else Carah told me during that conversation? She said, "When I started down the aisle and saw Matt at the other end of it, I knew he was the one, and everything was okay." Okay. It's a Lutheran's ring, but he's the right Lutheran, who is fine with marrying a West Side Catholic who twirls her hair, and the unidentified children can cry all they want. They might not have been in the original plan, but imagine how empty those pews would be without them. And then the right chiffon doesn't make one bit of difference.

so hard to let go of the garter toss at: mb@blondechampagne.com

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It could have been worse. He could have been a half-Jew from India whose mother converted to Islam and whose father is a devout Irish catholic.

You've not lived until you've experienced a 3.5 hour ceremony involving a rabbi, a priest, an iman, and the holy sacrifice of one couple's sanity for the sake of thousand-year tradition.

Besides, chiffon is a beeeaaaautiful color... at 3am... when you're drunk.

Anonymous said...

MB - even if every last detail isn't exactly how you always dreamed it, in the end it will be perfect - because it's the real thing - not a dream. Although I did manage to marry a west sider - he's not a Catholic west sider, but 4 1/2 years later (and more than 6 years since the engagement), I'm still wearing my Methodist's ring, and we couldn't be happier. I know you'll be saying the same a few years down the road. I am just so happy for you guys!!! Best wishes, and if you have any questions, or need any help, don't hesitate to ask!

Anonymous said...

MB-
Amid all the wedding joy, may I say (while borrowing a technique from you)-- Best.Post.In.Months.

Not that the others haven't been great, but you made me laugh a lot today....and I needed it. :)

Anonymous said...

MB - My wedding wasn’t like I expected either. But it’s not the wedding that counts… it’s the marriage. My friend was having a hard time with her wedding plans and I joked “Why don’t you guys come on vacation with us to Vegas and get married there?” She started looking at the prices and found that they could get a wedding and a honeymoon (airfare, hotel, and wedding ceremony) for the price of the regular church wedding. They had a beautiful wedding at the Tropicana. There were beautiful palm trees all around and a huge waterfall. It really made me jealous that I didn’t have my wedding there. It might not be for you guys, but just keep it in mind as a back up plan. : )

Anonymous said...

It's not a TRUE Vegas wedding unless Elvis is there ;)

Hubby and I planned a trip there when we were still dating. I had 2 free nights at the Tropicana (work spiff thing) and it expired on Mar 1st, we went Feb 26-28. He proposed (shocking the he** out of me!) on Valentine's day. We joked about getting hitched while we were there, but alas, did not. :(

The wedding was a blast, but we're gonna tell our grandchildren that we were secretly married by Elvis, and kept it a secret until the wedding 6 months later ;) Gotta have some fun right???

:)

Anonymous said...

Lutheran & RC - where will you two hallelujah on Sundays?

Anonymous said...

Tamar, My friends and I are from Memphis, so we have little bit of Elvis wherever we go. :) Vegas is awesome and we plan to go back when we can. That would have been a very cheap wedding for you guys. The ceremony would have only cost $150 in the bamboo chapel. I'm sure if you paid extra they could have Elvis sing "I can't help falling in love with you" as you walked down the isle.

Anonymous said...

Laney dear, "cheap" is the operative word re: a Vegas wedding. Tacky to the nth degree. Let us all pool our reader resources; these kids deserve better!

Anonymous said...

Okay, who has miles with what frequent flyer programs?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the good advice, all.

What a sweet, thoughtful idea about the miles, everybody. Josh and I tend to fly Southwest and Delta since they have the most flights in the Florida/Dulles/Cincinnati triangle.

Carrie said...

I married a Baptist west sider - it works out okay in the end :-) As long as he appreciates the awesomeness that is MB, he's okay in my book - regardless of being an "outsider."
Oh, and it is your wedding - no matter who says what - do what you want. Looking back I should have had the Pez wedding cake toppers . . .

Josh The Pilot said...

Anon1: One advantage of being an interchurch couple is we'll get two servings of hallelujah on Sundays. So far, whenever we're together on a Sunday, we go to both a Lutheran liturgical service and a Catholic Mass, and we plan to continue doing so after we're married. For time purposes it'd be nice to only attend one service on Sunday, but it's actually very nice getting a double dose of worship, fellowship, and Biblical teaching every week.

Jenib said...

MB- I married an RC from the north. Surprisingly his family was stuck in a North v. South mentality complete with raging stereotypes. My family and friends were really confused. You would have thought we were half wits with the way they spoke really slow and were surprised we spoke clear English and didn't come crawling out of a hay bail swatting Farmer Dale's pig with a tobacco stalk. Sigh. I tried to please everyone and ended up having the wedding of their dreams and not mine.
Dantelope, that sounds like the beginning of a very funny joke: What happens when you bring a rabbi, a priest, and an iman to a wedding...?

Anonymous said...

Laney-

OMG! I know what we're gonna do for a V-day in a couple o' years!! That would be so fun, and off the wall kooky. It would fit us perfectly.

MB-

You have gorgeous taste (all self-deprication aside, you gotta admit it.) Your wedding will be beautiful, congrats, and I wish you many good years (decades, centuries) of being Mrs. the Pilot. :)

Previous Tastings