A long road, an imagination, and a wedding fever

There I was, in Port Elgin, Ontario, sitting amongst a group of people of all ages, facing a decorated garden arbour. All of the guests were flipping through the same little pamphlet entitled “Our Wedding Day. Kristina and Nicholas.” I looked around the room. I watched as every guests’ face lit into a smile at the cartoon on the back of the wedding ceremony pamphlet thing. They were all strangers to me. I didn’t recognize a single person. But we had one thing in common: we were all gathered there that day to witness the combining of two lives, the love of two people, and the extreme humidity of that hot summer day.

I had gone to high school with Kristina. I had never met Nick. She was a friend of mine through those years of school. We shared laughs through accounting class (and the same lectures from the teacher about paying attention in class, and disruption of other kids’ learning), and small talk in the hall. About a year before that very day, I ran into Kristina at “Wal-mart”, and she told me to keep 07-07-07 open. I did.

Armed with a digital camera, dressed in my little black dress, and sporting a new pink lip-gloss, I slipped into my Ford Explorer early Saturday morning, and ventured forth to Port Elgin.

The wedding was wonderful. Small, intimate, and loaded with emotional tears of bridesmaids, mothers, sisters, cousins, and friends. I was happy to see my high school friend so gleeful as she danced around the dance floor, and kissed her groom like she was going to love him until the cows came home.

I mingled. I ate. I partied. I left.

I’ve never been one of those little girls that dreams of the big “Wedding Day”. I’ve never put a pillow case on my head, pretending it was a veil. I have however put a pillow case on my head when I drunk, and pretended I was a ghost, but that’s another can of worms….or beer.

I put my mother’s wedding dress on once, and I haven’t’ put it on since. The very idea of wearing something my father thought looked sexy sent into a big anxiety attack. I whipped it off so fast I could have made meringue with my feet.

I don’t give much thought to my wedding. I think more about the marriage.

However, on the drive home from the wedding, I let my thoughts lift towards my own wedding (or Shin-dig, as I’ve been known to call it). I was munching on jelly beans packed in purple lace to match the bridesmaids dresses (best party favour ever!), listening to my country music blare from the speakers of the old Explorer. Even in my thoughts I managed to dodge an entire family of raccoons crossing the road, unlike one of my best-friends, Claire, who took one down with her Honda Civic. The raccoon didn’t suffer, however Claire did.

My best-friend since public school will probably be my maid of honour. She and I will lock eyes during her speech. I’ll feel a pang of sisterly love, as she talks about old memories and inside jokes that only she and I understand. No one will understand what we’re laughing at, as we lean over, and feel our abs burn the calories we ate during dinner. Someone will say something, where it sparks the humour in Kimberly and I. We’ll rib each other with our elbows lightly, both signalling to each other that we find it funny. We’ll try our best to not laugh, but it will happen anyway…like it always does. My groom won’t understand what we’re laughing at, and neither will anyone else.

My father will not be able to look at me in the eye when we reach the alter where my sexy man is waiting for me (preferably Tim Mcgraw in whip cream not a tux). I’ll see a swelling of tears in his eyes as he hands his daughter over to someone that will be truly wonderful to me, but still, in his opinion, will never be as good to me as he was. My father will share small-talk with a man outside at the reception, as he smokes an “Old Port”, and cuts the filtered tip off the end of the cigar. He’ll probably chew mint gum through the entire ceremony. The wave of mint will hit me when I look at him. The scent will remind me of when I was a child. Part of me will yearn for the days when presents were “Barbies” not photo albums and oven mitts, and my father cut the grass with me on his knee.

My mother, whether she likes it or not, will be dressed glamorously. After raising me, battling with my brothers’ mental illness, their business, her own worries, and my PMS, she deserves to look “hot to trot”. My Mom never went to prom, she deserves a fancy dress. On that day, she’ll look like the Queen who raised the Princess. She’ll walk around, sharing laughter and smiles with her sisters, and she’ll try a sip of wine and thinks it’s gross. She’ll welcome my man (Tim McGraw) to the family in a speech, while she calms my father, and assures him that Timmy is a good man, and there is nothing to worry about. My mother will ask twenty times during the entire day how her hair looks.

My father’s old 58’ Ford Fairlane will be the background to the photographs. I’ll be sure to get a picture of me pointing at the weathered sticker that my Great Grandfather, the man that I never got to meet, placed with the care on the bumper, when he sold the car. He was a Ford Dealership owner.

My photos will be totally and completely “me”: smiles, tongues sticking out, thumbs up, funny faces, peace signs made with two fingers, cheeks pressed up against cheeks (and I don’t mean asses, but I’m sure that will happen too!), and a few candid ones.

After watching the fireworks light-up across Walkerton last weekend, I must say, I’m seriously thinking of lighting a few off in the parking lot of where the reception is. (Now, you stop your dirty mind, I mean ACTUAL FIREWORKS!)

My mother’s sisters, will dance the “The Twist” in their bare feet and their swishy dresses. I’ll be sure to grab the photographer to get a few snap-shots of me and the women that always called me “Lolly”, and told me I was wonderful, especially when I wasn’t as conceded as I am now.

I’ll spill something on my dress and it will stain. I’ll think it’s funny, and me and my maid of honour laugh until our stomachs hurt, and our faces ache. My new husband will become annoyed at our “fits of laughter” He’ll wonder if Kimberly is coming to our house a lot. He’ll see by the light in my eyes and the fun on my face, that he might as well get used to it.

My groom and I will hear the rhythm of a Elvis tune. He and I will probably stand on that dance floor, and swing our legs around like Elvis. We’ll prove to the entire crowd that we picked each other because no one else wanted either one of us.

The groomsmen, during the reception, will strip off the cumber buns and neck ties. Their jackets will be draped over the backs of chairs in a row at the front of the hall. They’ll unbutton the top buttons of their shirts, roll up their sleeves, and dance with a beer in their hands, armpit stains on their shirts, as they belch out lyrics to country music, and the gel in their hair sweats down their faces. Their girlfriends will mingle in the corner, and wonder when they’re day is coming…and if the drunken buffoon singing off-key will ever propose, and if they’ll say yes.

When “Man! I feel like a woman” comes to the dance floor, me and my beautiful ladies will shake what our mothers’ gave us. We’ll have a kind of alcohol in our systems that can only be described as adrenaline, happiness, friends and vodka.

People will say I look beautiful, and I’ll tell them I think I look pretty damn good too.

But this is all coming to me now. I don’t think about the material things about a wedding. I think about how great it will be to see my best friends standing, in pretty dresses, in a row, looking at me with love. I think about my man, who, strong and robust, will look so vulnerable as a tear rolls down his cheek, as he thinks to himself how lucky he is that he gets to kiss me everyday, that I kiss him back. We’ll bask in the glow of each others’ light for years, and we’ll look back on our wedding day with a smirk on our faces, and pride for the love we have.

That is, assuming I get married.

I once said to my mother that I didn’t want to get married. I said I was too independent, not emotional enough, and too strong willed for marriage. She rolled her eyes, and set her tea cup down. She looked at me for the first time like I was an idiot.

She said to me “Laura, you’re going to meet a man that is going to fall madly, deeply in love with you, and whether you like it or not, you’re going to fall madly, deeply in love with him. You’re going to get married. You’re going to have your ups and downs in that marriage, and you’re going to be happy. It’s going to happen sooner than you want, and when it happens, it happens, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. All I ask, is that when you marry this engineer-type, you let me come over, and swim in your pool.” I was sitting on the back step of my parents’ house, listening to the June bugs clink against the glass of the porch light, smacking mosquitoes away from my bare legs. Mother was sitting on a lawn chair, in her nightgown. She finished her lecture with, “you will get married, you’re going to meet him soon, and you’re going to be married, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with your father when this happens.”

I didn’t argue with her, because, as I’ve learned, Mother’s just know these things.