Wedding Bell Blues

My wedding day might have been the happiest day of my life, but I was so preoccupied that I couldn't relax enough to enjoy it. Technically, it was perfect -- everything went as planned, on time and according to plan. But under the surface, I felt like we were dancing inside a fragile house of cards that could tumble apart at any minute. I don't think I took a deep breath until we were a thousand miles away on a tropical island with umbrella drinks in our hands.

Our first thought after we got engaged was to elope. But my husband wanted his kids there, so we switched to Plan B -- a small gathering of immediate family and best friends. An influential colleague pulled some strings so we could have the ceremony on a balcony of a landmark building in the big city. But because my husband balked at setting a date until the last minute, we couldn't work out the logistics on such short notice. Hence, our wedding: a bigger ceremony in a sweet little chapel about 20 miles outside the small town.

The wedding itself was so simple we didn't even bother with a rehearsal. Even if we had, there were still a million moving parts that were beyond our control. For instance...

My dress: I ordered my not-really-a-wedding-dress wedding dress from a dress shop in the big city. I should have had it made-to-measure, but after I moved, my travel schedule made it all but impossible to get there for the fittings the dressmaker required. I had her send it to me, and took it to a small town seamstress for alterations on the recommendation of a friend. When I picked it up, the bodice didn't quite fit right. Because there wasn't time to get it fixed before the wedding, I stood up straight and threw my shoulders back to take up the slack. Unless you were really looking, you couldn't tell that it was less than perfect. Toward the end of the day, when my posture started sagging a bit, you can see a little blousing in some of the pictures. You can't tell a thing, however, in our formal portraits.

The cake: I made our cake from scratch. I baked the layers and whipped up monster batches of orange-vanilla custard filling and Italian meringue buttercream two days beforehand. On our wedding eve, my best friend and I assembled, filled, frosted, and decorated the cake in the room where we were having the reception so we wouldn't have to worry about it falling apart during transport. Needless to say, it didn't look (or taste) homemade.

My look: On my wedding day, the first thing I did was treat myself and my best friend to an up-do, makeup, and a manicure. We came out of the salon looking extra-fabulous, with big hair and smoky eyes. When my dad told me that I should wash my face, my little sister shut him down before he could start in with the same "painted woman" lecture he'd been giving us since we were thirteen. She told me, "You know, if Dad thinks it looks like too much, it means they did a good job."

The flowers: My best friend's daughter put our bouquets together an hour before the ceremony, using 50 white roses and several yards of gold wired ribbon I picked up from a local floral wholesaler. I remembered to hang the bouquet upside down before we left for the honeymoon, and now it sits in a crystal vase in our china cabinet, next to the vintage bride and groom cake topper I found on E-Bay.

My grand entrance: My dad seemed relieved when I told him I'd prefer to walk in by myself, but my husband was disappointed when his kids told him they'd rather not play for the ceremony. It's not that they weren't happy for us, it's just that active participation seemed a little too disloyal to their mother. Instead, my best friend's husband played me down the aisle with a little tune he said he made up on the spot.

Our vows: The minister, who was a colleague of mine, wrote the most beautiful, personal ceremony for us. She paid a loving tribute to my husband's parents, both of whom are deceased. She wove stories from our long-distance courtship into the homily. She chose one of Jesus' parables for the lesson ("anything but I Corinthians," I said) that highlighted the precious and random nature of love. She even managed to work in a fishing analogy, to the delight of my sportsman husband. I choked up when it was time to say my vows -- how odd that the girl who is never at a loss for words would be speechless at her own wedding.

Bottom line: If all I'd had to worry about was losing my voice, or the way my dress fit, or whether my dad thought I looked trashy, or if my flowers would wilt before I got down the aisle, or would the frosting on the cake melt, or did my soon-to-be-stepkids hate me, the day would have been a breeze. All that was small stuff I was long past sweating. No, my biggest wedding day worry -- the one that kept me up at night, tied my stomach in a knot, and had me looking over my shoulder all day -- was my fear that The Other Woman would follow through with her angry threats to disrupt the day.

In the end, she didn't, and everything went like beautiful clockwork. But why she made the threats, and why I chose to believe my husband's version of events, are stories for another post.

The Wife Who Knows