How I Planned Your Wedding (16 page)

We rode to the top floor, and when the doors opened, the girl in the lime-green dress stepped out with us.
She must be staying on this floor, too,
I thought.

Molly, Lindsey, Aubrey and I started walking down the hallway toward the suite. We were a little early and knew that nobody else—the makeup artist, the hairstylist, my mom, the other bridesmaids—would be there yet, but we were going to call room service and have our breakfast delivered.

As we rounded the corner, I could see the elegant double doors to the suite. I paused, realizing we didn’t have a key to the room yet. As I turned to ask one of my girls to run down and grab a key from the front desk, I spotted the girl in the lime-green dress.

Her hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate updo and I got a lovely view from the back as she stepped by us, murmuring, “Excuse me” and flashing one last smile.

Wait—why was she passing us? The only room in this hallway was the bridal suite.

She reached into a clutch made from the same lime-green satin as her dress and shoes and pulled out a key card.

I felt the air whoosh out of my lungs as she popped the key into the slot on the door of the bridal suite—
my bridal suite
—and pushed
the handle.

As the doors swung open, I looked inside. Eight girls wearing identical lime-green dresses twittered around another young woman in a robe just like mine, sipping a mimosa and having her hair done.

My mind was blank with confusion. I didn’t understand what was happening until Aubrey spoke. “It’s another bride,” she said flatly.

Another bride?

Another bride?!

There I was, in the buff under my robe, being punched in the face with the news that my precious princess suite had been invaded by an enemy bride and her disgustingly well-coordinated bridesmaid minions.

Now, many brides would probably have reacted with tears of sadness, fists of rage or squeals of cosmic pain. I waited for my own reaction.

But it never came. Calmly, I turned to my friends and said, “Okay! Let’s go talk to the front desk!”

Fifteen minutes later, we figured out that the rogue bridal party had called late last night and booked the room through a night receptionist who didn’t know it was reserved for the following morning.

Thirty seconds after that, Jody and her wedding squad swarmed into the lobby of the hotel, ready to do battle. I don’t know what she said to the people at the hotel, but the next thing I knew I was ensconced in a limo, being whisked away to a suite at the Four Seasons, where I would be getting ready instead.

Was it as roomy as the original bridal suite? No.

Did I give a rip? Definitely not.

I still got to be surrounded by my girls and my mom as I got buffed and fluffed.

I still got to sit quietly and slowly ease into the most important day of my life.

I still got to run an IV line of champagne into my bloodstream.

Sure, the whole episode with the doppelgänger bride put us
behind schedule by about an hour, and we took fewer bridal portraits with my bridesmaids. Ultimately, we ended up running out of time for family portraits, something I still regret. But our photographer managed to take incredible candid shots of all my loved ones enjoying the wedding. And I would take the genuine smiles and emotion in those photographs over plastered-on, posed portraits any day.

The hotel, of course, was profusely apologetic about the whole situation, but I was happy to forgive. It was an innocent mistake—and they more than made up for the issue by offering a ton of freebies the next time we stayed there.

The moral of the story? Something will go wrong. Accept it, move on and practice saying “So what?” when someone makes a mistake. Or sic your mom on the off ender. I didn’t have to pull out the mother-guns on the hotel, but don’t think for a second that she wasn’t ready to rip open someone’s jugular with her French manicure on my command.

SUSAN

There was a moment when we were getting ready for the big entrance, putting the finishing touches on hair and makeup, poofing the dress, straightening the pearls, putting the veil in place, when a thoughtful expression softened Elizabeth’s face. “This is my prettiest day,” she said. “I’ll never be prettier than I am today. It’s all downhill from here.”

And I thought,
Oh, honey
.

Far be it from me to tell the bride on her wedding day that she’s wrong. She’ll discover it on her own, anyway.

It’s true that every happy bride is beautiful. But her prettiest day? Not even close.

Because here’s the truth. When you find the love of your life, the puzzle piece that completes you, the one person who gives you that
deep sense of joy, then every day is your prettiest day.

Each morning when you get up, he will look at you and something magical will happen. No matter what day it is, he will see true beauty. As time goes by, your beauty will only deepen and intensify in his eyes. This includes—but is not limited to—mornings when you’re late and yelling at him and racing to catch the bus. Late nights when you’ve stayed up, arguing about nothing. When you’re eight months’ pregnant and bloated like a tick. When you’re crying over a lost cat or fighting with your mother. And when you turn forty, and seventy-three, and when you win an award or crash the car or you’re sick in bed or grieving a loss. To the love of your life, those are
all
your prettiest days.

Today is just the first of many such days, and I’m glad I got to witness it.

Maybe those really were your prettiest shoes, though. Man, those wedding shoes were something.

I
t’s called a wedding because two people are getting married—you and your One. Try to keep this in mind when you’re freaking out about the lining in your bridesmaids’ shoes.

In the months leading up to the wedding, I started having flash-backs to stories my married friends had told me. While the details varied, an anecdote I’d heard over and over was the one about the first step down the aisle: “I had been WIGGING out all day,” said one coworker. “But as soon as I saw my guy at the end of the aisle, I forgot all my worries and stayed calm for the whole ceremony.”

The vast majority of the wives had a story about an unexpected change that had come over them as they began that long, slow walk toward their future husbands. I didn’t give it much thought until my own wedding drew near, but suddenly I found myself obsessing over what profound shift I would experience as I turned the corner and saw Dave standing at the altar, waiting for me in front of all our guests. I envisioned my whole range of emotions and tried to guess where I would end on the spectrum. Would I be as calm and graceful as my friend, Molly, had been, smiling radiantly at various audience members to my left and right as I walked down the aisle? Would I gaze steadily and confidently at my future husband, as Dave’s cousin had? Would I smile through a glistening veil of tears? Grin and laugh at the wonder of the moment? Silently mouth “I love you” at Dave? Pause and embrace my
parents and grandparents? Hold myself like a regal queen, secure in her power and womanhood?

Notice that in all these ruminations, the bride is doing something meaningful and touching.

She’s definitely not embarrassing herself or anything like that.

I never even considered the possibility that I would screw up the walk down the aisle.

Okay, so throughout the day leading up to the 3:00 p.m. wedding, I was chill as a cucumber. I calmly glided through the hotel room confusion, through unseasonably hot weather, through emotionally charged moments with my mom. Moments before I walked down the aisle, I sat in a back room with my dad making jokes and sipping champagne to calm the butterflies in my stomach. But I felt serene. Collected. Ready.

Jody, our wedding planner, poked her head in the door and said, “It’s time.”

I looked at my dad, grinned, took a deep breath and walked down the hall that led to the atrium where I would be getting married.

I tucked my hand into the warm crook of Daddy’s arm as I approached the end of the aisle. Nobody could see me yet, but I could hear the strains of “Morning Has Broken” by Cat Stevens beginning to play. Jody quickly reached out and positioned my bouquet of white hydrangea, fluffed my train and smiled at me.

We turned the corner. I looked up and saw a room of nearly two hundred people, all looking at me. At the end of the aisle in front of me, beneath a gauzy white canopy, I saw Dave.

And I lost it.

Not just a little.

With a snort, I heaved out a giant sob.

Inside my head, the alarm bells went off.
Wait, you were calm just a second ago! Stop! Stop crying! You KNOW you have an ugly cry face! Don’t ruin the photos!

Impulsively, I jerked my hand—the one holding the bouquet—up to my face, a lame attempt to hide from two hundred pairs of eyes
looking at me. I glanced at the DJ to my right. What did I think I was going to do? Make him stop the music and start the whole thing over again?

Crap,
I thought.
I suck.

I choked out a couple more sobs—the squeaky, high-pitched kind—and gulped in a huge breath of air.
Smile through the glittering veil of tears!
I desperately told myself. I tried to wrench the sides of my mouth upward, but my cheeks quivered and fought the effort, my tearful pout overpowering any attempt to look pretty. I bit the inside of my lips and attempted to force my face into submission, but no avail.

All this happened in the span of about three seconds.

My dad looked down at me with a worried expression as he felt my first step on the aisle waver.

Suddenly, I realized how silly my internal monologue was.

So I was going to sob down the aisle. So what? Sure, maybe I’d look like a medieval wench with a sizable dowry being forced into an arranged marriage, but whatever. It was my wedding. These would all turn into fond memories.

Four seconds.

I lowered my bouquet and looked up at Dave. I held his gaze as best I could through my streaming tears while I clutched my dad’s arm and continued my walk down the aisle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my friend Ashley crying with me, and as I passed her I muttered, “I’m not gonna make it!”

I don’t know what I meant. Not going to make it down the aisle? Not going to make it through the wedding without crying? Not going to make it out of this crazy world alive?

I don’t know, but I heard Ashley laugh and I felt the butterflies in my stomach settle. I smiled at Dave as best I could, and before I knew it I was standing in front of him at the altar.

I turned to my dad and listened to him respond, “Her mother and I do,” when our officiant asked who brought this woman to be given to this man.

I won’t lie; my dad looked pretty miserable.

My dad’s one of those guys who panics when his little girl cries. He never knows what to do with all the emotion, with the wrenching heartstrings, with the sprinkler system that has just started to squirt out of his daughter’s face.

I caught his eye and pointed to the very top of my head, a gesture I’ve done since I was little—a silent demand for a kiss on the head. He leaned forward and planted one on me, reached out and shook Dave’s hand, then helped me step up onto the dais.

This was it. The wedding had begun.

I dabbed at the tears under my eyes with my handkerchief, took Dave’s hands and turned to our officiant to listen to his comments on the nature of marriage.

The rest of the ceremony was most definitely not a blur, though I know some brides say theirs was. I remember every second of the thirty-odd minutes that turned me into a wife. I remember the audience laughing as I wiped a bead of sweat from Dave’s cheek (it was ninety-six degrees and he was in a tuxedo—can you blame the guy?). I remember glancing over Dave’s shoulder and seeing his dad wink at me. I remember being the only one who noticed the single tear that fell down Dave’s cheek as his cousins and uncle performed an acoustic arrangement of “In My Life” by the Beatles. I remember our best friends, Molly and Jesse, carefully leading us through a hand-holding ceremony that I had planned on having in my wedding since high school. I remember hugging Molly after she finished her reading and whispering “Oh, my God!” into her ear because I could barely contain myself. I remember the feeling of tears filling my eyes as I began to say my vows to Dave, forcing me to pause and collect myself so I could get through them without barfing emotion all over him. I remember Dave’s great-uncle talking about breaking my hymen—yep, someone said
hymen
during my wedding ceremony—before Dave and I performed the Jewish glass-stomping ceremony. I remember seeing my dad shaking with laughter at the word
hymen.
I remember the overwhelming feeling
of hearing
man and wife
as we turned toward the audience and walked out of the auditorium. And I remember looking at my mom and seeing her face wreathed in such joy that I knew—despite all the head-butting and strife—she was proud of me, proud of my husband and proud of the beautiful wedding we had created together.

It was awesome.

And remember the whole ugly, photo-ruining sobbing down the aisle crisis?

Weeks later, I got my wedding photographs and video back, and it turns out that my “ugly cry” wasn’t so ugly after all. Sure, I looked emotional and had the teensiest bit of a double chin when I ducked my head shyly in an attempt to hide my tears. But mostly I look like a beautiful, emotional bride who had just been hit by the significance of the moment.

I had nothing to worry about.

And that’s my advice to you, brides: if you’re hit with some random emotion or feeling that you weren’t expecting during your wedding ceremony, ride it out. Don’t think about it or worry about what it will look like in your photographs. The love you’re feeling will make you beautiful, no matter what.

Plus, if it’s really that bad (and it won’t be), there’s always Photoshop.

SUSAN

THE BIG DAY HAS ARRIVED!

“Can I have a bagel? Wait, I’d rather have an English muffin, with freezer jam.”

“Where’s the dustpan?”

“What’s your wireless password again? I need to check my email.”

“Is Barkis allowed to eat that?”

“Is there a dry cleaner nearby?”

“The printer’s jammed and I need to print the MapQuest directions.”

“We’re out of coffee.”

“The dog just yarked on the carpet.”

“You never told me I’d need cuff links.”

“Can I borrow your hair dryer? And will you iron this shirt?”

“Someone’s at the door.”

Let’s hope it’s an ax murderer. Because, face it, as much as you adore your family and have been dreaming of a houseful o’ love for this blessed event, you kind of want them dead right now. All of them, right down to the little old lady rooting around in the fridge for the jar of Marmite.

It’s your daughter’s damn wedding day. Doesn’t anyone appreciate that?

Fortunately, I have a completely nonfelonious solution for dealing with a situation like this—and trust me, it will come up. Four words:
Run Away From Home.

Yes, I mean it. Smile excitedly, check your watch or cell phone screen and say, “I have to go now. I’ve got a hair appointment.”

“At 7:00 in the morning?” Skeptical frowns all around.

“The hairdresser insisted. She’s giving me a special process.” Lie with impunity. No one will quibble with a hairdresser’s special process. Then say, “I’ll see you at the ceremony!”

Breeze out of there, jump in the car and floor it.

A couple of assumptions. Prior to making your great escape, you have done everything on your mental and/or written checklist. You have your dress, shoes, jewelry and makeup already stashed in the car. (Note: You have my permission to forget your Spanx—you know, those punishing undergarments that suck everything in. No one will think less of you for it.)

Grab your purse (take the cell phone, but turn the ringer off for
now) and drive. Where you go is up to you. Just make sure it’s peaceful, quiet and unknown to people in need of English muffins or freezer jam. Stop at a latte stand and get yourself something tall, sweet and creamy. Make sure you have a fat, juicy novel to read.

I really did have a hair appointment the morning of the wedding. Not at 7:00 a.m., though. So what I did was, I got my double-tall-skinny-vanilla and took it to the waterfront park, which at that hour was deserted except for some really quiet people doing tai chi, and a Border Collie stalking some killdeer. I stood watching the sky turn from pink to gold, and I pictured my daughter at every phase of her life—every beautiful, naughty, glorious, frustrating, hilarious, triumphant, despairing and joyous moment of her life—and with every cell of spiritual energy I had, I wished her well. And had a little cry.

Okay, kind of a big cry.

Then I got over myself, went and sat on the front porch of the salon and did my nails. A French manicure with seashell pink. (Tip: Always try to patronize a beauty shop that has a front porch.)

Take some deep breaths. Don’t touch anything until the nail polish sets hard. And for heaven’s sake, quit fretting. Don’t worry about abandoning your family, your houseguests, even your stubbornly clueless spouse. It’s not your job to manage everything. That’s what you do every other day of your life.

You need to take time on the day of the wedding that’s just for you. You need to remember this is a spiritual, life-changing event, not to be taken lightly, so give it the time and space it deserves.

As for the above-mentioned spouse, you probably have one of your own. Maybe you’ve had him for decades and you’re
still
not done raising him. That’s because—news flash, hello—he’s a
guy.
He is not going to turn into Richard Gere in
Shall We Dance?
overnight. Or ever, for that matter.

Just remind yourself of this—you’ll be surprised at how well he comports himself, left to his own devices. Maybe the pleats of his cummerbund will be facing down. It’s quite possible he’s wearing zip-ties
where the cuff links are supposed to be. And, um, you might catch a glimpse of athletic tube sock peeking out of his tux shoe. I’m just saying.

But again, remember, a joyous smile covers a multitude of flaws. This is the guy who helped you raise the princess bride. He’s fabulous, when it comes down to it. My editor and friend, Margaret, had a great suggestion I wish I’d taken—after the postwedding dust settles, jump in the car with this guy and head out for your own little recovery-moon. That comes later. For now, though, just get him into some semblance of a tux and hope for the best.

Better yet, take advantage of all available family members. It would be a great idea to leave him in the care of your two most irresistible nieces. Honestly, have you ever known him to say no to his nieces?

Tell the nieces that the hairstylist is supposed to make him look like Dr. McDreamy on
Grey’s Anatomy.
Tell them they must not allow him to smoosh down his hair with his lucky baseball cap. Tell them there must not be any visible duct tape anywhere on his person. Tell them his socks need to be black, even if it means getting out the Sharpie markers.

Style tip: The best wardrobe Nazi in the world is a twelve-year-old niece.

ELIZABETH

One intrinsic wedding detail that many couples seem to do the night before is the writing of the ceremony. Writing your ceremony should be a personal process involving you, your fiancé and your officiant. Oh, and if your mom is a romance writer, guess who else gets a say? Luckily for us, words (even the words of a published novelist) are cheap and
asking for her input didn’t lead to another showdown between the Wiggs women. Honestly, at that point, as long as I wasn’t asking my mom for more money, she was happy.