May hit and has about evaporated. It always seems to do that. Everything greens up and really gets to growing and I spend more time watering roses and pulling weeds. Our first anniversary is Monday, where ever did the year go? Hubby has been teasing me the last few days asking me what I was doing a year ago that day. One year ago today one of his kids was already staying with us along with my mother and his daughter’s family was on their way in. We were busy getting the house ready for the evening’s cookout for the wedding party, family and friends. I was up first thing in the morning creating the centerpieces, with help from mom, for the tables with the roses that had arrived the day before. They would fill the bathtub before the morning was through. I had purchased two tall black vases that would sit on the floor on either side of the ceremony sight and they were filled next. We still had plenty of roses left so we made attached a bit of baby’s breath to each and placed them at each place setting for the guests along with the personalized candy bars.
After lunch we were scheduled to have our practice session at the museum. Everyone was gathering at the house, getting ready to go when the phone rang. It was the cake decorator and she didn’t have good news. She told me that she had lost the photo of the cake, decorated the way that we wanted and was telling me her memory of what it should look like. My heart sank. She had known since the day before that she couldn’t find it and wanted to know if she could come over to the house right then to discuss with me what it was to look like. Just to be sure she had it correct. Before my eyes passed the image of me with my hands firmly planted around her neck. She kept assuring me it would be beautiful. Yeah, I thought, but whose cake will it look like.
I told her that we had a rehearsal to go to and we were on our way out the door. She agreed to meet me there to review her drawing so we could be sure I got what I wanted. We all piled into the car and started for the museum. Ten minutes later my cell phone rang and it was the usher for the wedding. He was already at the museum and was told they had no record of us having a rehearsal. I took a deep breath and told him we were almost there and I would take care of it. True enough when I got there we weren’t on the schedule, anywhere. They called the coordinator who told them that sure enough, we were supposed to be there.
Now it was just down to waiting on the minister. Here in the city they have ministers for hire. In this day and age of location weddings I guess this has become common. It made me chuckle to tell people that he was a hired gun. The minister that we did get was not the first one scheduled, but a replacement, the first one had a family emergency so our guy stepped in. He was a terrific person, young and jovial, willing to help and we practiced in two locations, one inside and one out, in case it should rain.
By the time we finished up with rehearsal the cake decorator had arrived. I walked back across the floor towards the cake decorator with the minister by my side and whispered to him that he might want to stick around for a funeral. He grinned back at me and quipped “we do that too!”
I pasted a smile on my face and greeted the cake decorator, looking around for my fiancé to help me keep from killing her. She whipped out a drawing and started telling me what I had said I wanted. Every time I tried to correct her she would talk over me and explain what the photo she had lost looked like. The same one she couldn’t remember. No, I would say, I want that smaller. No that was one piece. All fell on deaf ears. It will be beautiful she assured me. I groaned internally and walked away from her. The way things were going, I had a feeling there was going to be bigger fish to fry before the next two days were over.
The gathering at the house went smoothly. Everyone was a bit surprised that we had organized the dinner the night before the wedding, but it turned out to be less stressful and expensive than trying to get everyone at a location for dinner. It was humid, just like today, but not raining and people spilled out onto the patio and into the slightly damp yard. A good friend and her husband stayed after everyone had left and did the dishes. I had to grin at her as the Italian in her blood took over and she barked orders at her all too willing husband to hand her this and dry off that, and in record time everything was cleaned and put away.
Exhaustion took over and we crawled into bed, ready to attack the list of to-dos leading up to the ceremony for the next day.