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First day back in the office after two days out. Guaranteed to be insane before I even set foot through the door.
Why should it be any different from the rest of my weekend, though?
My mom�s birthday celebration was really good. Quality time with Mom. She loved her presents, lunch was delicious, the ride to NH was beautiful, the conversation stayed pleasant. So glad we went.
The rehearsal was chaos. I can�t imagine what mine, with all 14 grownup members of the bridal party plus the nine kids is going to be like. And the food at the rehearsal dinner was AWFUL! I�m not talking just not my favorite foods�I�m talking questionable silver stuff on David�s turkey, congealed gravy and brown lettuce for a garnish. I�m talking about apple crisp that was chopped, uncooked apples and cinnamon with raw oatmeal on top, like they just didn�t cook it. It was BAD.
So, of course, it shouldn�t surprise me that the icky part of the weekend happened there.
After dinner, Mom and I were talking to my cousin Gina, who is going to do my wedding flowers, about flowers and our choice of caterers and other various weddingy things. She was acting very strange�uncomfortable, actually. I thought maybe she didn�t want to talk about my wedding at Diana�s rehearsal, but other people, including Diana, asked us all about it.
Finally, as Mom and David were leaving, Gina and Julie approached her, looking uneasy.
Because our family has gotten so huge and diverse, Christmas has become a big inconvenience. We�ve ended up with a thousand gifts to buy, which we don�t even see each other open, since we all celebrate separately. Mom decided that she didn�t want it to go that way this year, and talked to everyone in the North Shore portion of my family (my Uncle Bobby and his kids) about drawing names, buying one present and then getting together a couple weeks before Christmas to exchange them. Everyone agreed.
Thursday night, Mom brought the names we�d drawn for everyone to the rehearsal dinner so we could give them out. Gina stopped her before she took out the squares of paper and told her that she�d been thinking about the whole idea, and that she didn�t feel like she could participate, since Terry would be there (Terry is my cousin Tony�s wife, Gina�s sister-in-law, and one of my favorite people in my family. Gina hates her, for reasons I really don�t understand. And since Gina hates her, so does Julie, and Chris (their stepmother�my uncle�s wife, whom they also have irrationally hated in the past) has jumped on the bandwagon. It�s stupid and unnecessary and inexplicable�even THEY can�t tell you why they don�t like her�and ugly, and I hate that it�s happening in my family).
So Gina told my mom that she�d rather not do Christmas instead of having to spend an evening with Terry, and why didn�t we just drop the gift thing this year anyway. So my mom said, �Okay, fine, then let�s just forget about Christmas.�
Gina said, �Aunt Marie, don�t be like that.�
Mom looked at her and blinked, then opened her mouth. �Gina, don�t even try to tell me how to be.�
So we�re not doing Christmas this year. And my mom has given up on trying to keep that side of my family together, which is really sad, but entirely understandable. I don�t even pretend to understand what goes through their minds, or why whatever original slight that was perceived is enough to carry through for years of resentment and bad feeling, but there it is. My cousins suck. They�re not nice to lots of people. I�m not sure how I�ve escaped their bad feeling so far, but I realize that it could change at a moment�s notice.
Sadly, that thought hung in the back of my head through the whole rest of the weekend.
Oh�right. I was talking about the wedding, wasn�t I?
Anyway�
The wedding ceremony itself was very sweet. Dylan, Julie�s son and the ring bearer (he�s three and a half), froze at the back of the church, and I ended up walking him down the aisle instead of being escorted by one of the ushers, but everything else went smoothly. And Diana glowed from the second we got to the church straight through the end of the night. She was so happy, and she had such a good time, that nothing else about the day is very important. Erik looked the same way. It was a good feeling, seeing the two of them together like that. Heartwarming.
I told the Boyfriend, after we�d been at the church for an hour and a half after the ceremony ended, taking picture after picture after picture (�Okay, now the bride and groom. Now the bride�s family with the couple. Now the bride�s family with just the bride. Now the bride and groom with the bridesmaids. Now just the bride with the bridesmaids. Now just the groom with the bridesmaids. Now the bride and groom with the ushers. Now just the bride with the ushers. Now just the groom with the ushers. Now the bride and groom with the kids. Now just the bride with the kids. Now just the boys. Now just the girls. Now the families together.�) that we�re only going to do five formal portrait poses before we join the reception�one with his family, one with my family, one with the whole wedding party, kids included, one without the kids, and one of just him and me. Any other photos we need can be taken before the ceremony or at the reception. We didn�t get to the hall until almost three hours after the ceremony started, and it only lasted 25 minutes!
After the ridiculous stream of photos, we finally left the church and headed for the Elks Hall. I was wearing my bridesmaid dress, a slinky slipdress number with a shawl, all made out of some shiny man-made fabric (translation�thin and not warm). I also had my hair up in my best 90210 imitation, zigzag part and all.
We got outside into the parking lot. I looked at the Boyfriend, incredulous. �You took the top down on the Jeep?!�
�Umm�it was warmer at home,� he said, looking at his feet. �Do you want me to put it up now?�
I didn�t. I just wanted to get out of there, hopefully to somewhere that I could eat and get away from my cousins.
We drove the 20 minutes on the highway with me crouched in the front seat, huddled around the heat vents and trying to keep my hair out of the windstream.
Whatever the hairdresser had put in my hair, though, was fabulous. It didn�t budge at all. From 10:30 in the morning until 12:30 at night, when we finally got home, it stayed in exactly the same place, even through the top-down ride in the Jeep. I think I�ve found a wedding hairstyle.
Ugh�how did it get to be 5:15? Off to BARCC. I guess I can�t dish about the wedding until later�
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