The Wedding From Hell

The Wedding Part 10--The Theme...

I’m not sure when weddings started to have themes but I’ll bet it was right around the time Brides started having input into their own bridal showers.

I got married almost 9 years ago; since then, apparently, the rules have changed. Way back in the old days the theme of a wedding was, well, wedding. Not anymore.

My sister has been big into the wedding theme. Right from the beginning it was to be a beach theme. The out of town guests were to receive a plastic pail and shovel with a booklet that contained their itinerary for the weekend as well as a list of ‘Fun Places to Go’ during their down time. (We will cover what I think of this weekend extravaganza idea at a later date.)

The cake was to be blue with edible seashells and beach chairs placed on top of it.

The place cards weren’t going to be place cards at all; they were going to be cheap sunglasses with the names and seating numbers written in neon marker.

There were going to be goldfish on the tables or Fighting Tiger Fish.

There was going to be sand sprinkled on the tables—because everyone just loves to eat at the beach. Sand adds that certain something to food, don’t you think?

All of this sounded absolutely horrible to me, but it was her wedding. I planned on spending most of my time at the bar. What did I care? But it also didn’t really jibe with the other things she was saying. She kept talking about her elegant evening wedding. Her theme belonged more at an afternoon wedding in the middle of July where the bride wore a white bathing suit and sarong and all the guests came barefoot to the ceremony held on the beach and after the vows had a sand castle making contest.

We subtly suggested she change the theme to ocean. Write the seating numbers on sand dollars—ok not much better but a small step up. We suggested taking the beach chairs off the cake and if she absolutely had to have the sand on the table that she put it under glass so that it didn’t add that extra crunch to the salmon.

Oh, did I mention she was serving salmon? Now, I know salmon is in. I get that. But given that we are a meat and potatoes family and that through anecdotal evidence we came to the conclusion that salmon absorbs way less alcohol than your standard wedding chicken or beef dish—no one was terribly thrilled about the salmon. There was some talk about everyone bringing a bag lunch to the festivities. I chimed in with the fact that I heard salmon has really high mercury content. I can be so helpful when I try.

So we moved from beach to ocean; but then something happened.

A crisis of mass proportion arose that we thought might derail the whole wedding. The bridesmaid dresses could not be ordered in a color that would match the blue and green mottled table linens that had been specifically chosen to go with the beach/ocean theme.

There was only one thing to do—change the theme.

To what, you ask?

How about butterflies? They represent change. They represent a metamorphosis into something beautiful. If the theme were butterflies we could string them from the ceiling and…wouldn’t it be beautiful. You know who was going to get stuck stringing the damn butterflies from the ceiling, don’t you? Uh huh. That would be me.

Then there was the LOOOOOVVVVEEE theme. Red. Hearts. Roses. You know The LOOOOOOVVVVVVVE?

At that point my eyes glazed over and I lost consciousness. When I came to, the theme had been decided. The new theme was Fall--Oh, excuse me--Autumn.

There would be cornstalks on the table as well as leaves. They would go in a hand painted box—whitewashed to look rustic.

The cake would know have white frosting with chocolate leaves.

The place cards would be burned hunks of wood--my sister would wood burn them herself.--that would be attached to a free standing wall made out of lattice or a barn door, if one could be located.

The table linens would be orange and the bridesmaid dresses would be candy apple red. At some point, when the theme changed so did the need for the bridesmaid dresses to mach the table linens.

And now, since the theme had changed, we would be offered a choice of meals. Salmon would be an option but so would chicken and some vegetarian thing. Also, pumpkin soup would be served as well because--yup--it matched the theme and the table linens.

Finally,as fun, we could do the New England thing and take the out-of-town guests apple picking the day of the wedding.

I could see all of it flash before my eyes. The bride stung by bees, all puffed and swollen—possible with a big gaping hole in her arm from where she fell and impaled herself on a branch.

I mentioned this to the Bride, whose eyes got very large. There was a moment when I thought, “yes, yes, yes!” She is getting it. She sees the error of her ways.

She opened her mouth and said, “Oh no. I’m not going to take them apple picking. I’ll be getting my hair done."

Uh huh. You know who was going to be going apple picking, don’t you. Yup. That would be me.

The Wedding, Part 9--Kids Say and Do the Darndest Things

So, I was the wedding yeller. For those of you who don’t get it, this was my sisters’ form of revenge—sort of. She knew I couldn’t say no. It covered her as far as my wedding involvement went and it had the added benefit of her getting to boss me around. All of that was fine, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t be enough.

I was right.

Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned my children very much; that is about to change.

I have three children—two boys and a girl—who are ages 8, 7, and 5. The two boys are autistic. I tell you this for one reason and one reason alone—on occasion Autism can be funny.

My oldest has anxiety issues. He constantly thinks that people are laughing at him. As his Mom, it is my job to point out when people are actually laughing at him and what he did to cause the laughter. He also has anger issues. Jacob can go from really happy to “climb- the-bell-tower-and-kill-‘em-all” angry in half a second flat. And when Jacob gets angry he lets you know it at the top of his lungs with colorful language—then he cries and runs out of the room.

Zachary is the middle child and his autism takes a different form. He doesn’t have anger issues—he sometimes makes weird noises and flaps his arms—but generally he is a happy guy. He has clothing issues. Zachary’s issue with clothing is that he prefers not to wear any. If he has to wear some—his current favorites are the Spiderman Costume that has holes in the backside or the newer, cleaner and less ripped Mr. Incredible Costume. We have managed to get him to wear normal clothes to school and camp but pretty much the rest of the time Zachary is a Superhero.

Kaileigh is the five year old tomboy/princess and she is not autistic. She is a normal five year old girl—kind of. I say kind of because genetics dictates that she not be normal. One time my mother babysat and when I came home my daughter had become opposed to underwear. Turns out my mother told her she didn’t need to wear underwear under her pajamas—something that is either a testament to my not-so-stellar laundry skills or my mother’s recently developed allergy to nylon. Either way, my daughter now spends much of her time commando.

None of these things matter much on a normal day, but my sister had her lists of wants for her wedding. One of those wants was to have my kids be IN the wedding.

She asked. I said, “No.” She begged; I stayed strong. She complained; I explained. We settled on no. A week later she called to see if I had changed my mind. As I was about to say no, my daughter—the spawn of Satan—screamed, “I want to be in Aunt Colleen’s wedding!"

Well, there it was.

Colleen talked to them all. She explained what was required. She made it sound fun. All of my children agreed. Jacob wanted to know if he had to wear a bear costume—ring “bearer.” He was relieved to find out that the answer was no. Kaileigh—who aside from being opposed to underwear—hates the socks that are stuck together—i.e. tights, but thought she could tolerate them for one day. Zachary was just Zachary. He didn’t appear to have any concerns whatsoever.

I, on the other hand, had visions. I began to suffer from Pre-Traumatic Stress. I could see the whole thing playing out before my eyes. Jacob would drop the ring and run screaming from the room telling all 300 guests that he hated them. Zachary would change into a Superhero—without the benefit of a phone booth. And Kaileigh would somehow manage to make it half way down the aisle without tights or underwear where she would in true five year old form flip her dress right over her head.

But the bride WANTED them in her wedding.

Well, wish granted.

The Wedding, Part 8--The Wedding Yeller

A week after my sister returned from her European Vacation she came back to Rhode Island to plan the wedding. She brought her fiancé because she was new to the whole engaged thing and didn’t realize that men are best kept away from wedding plans. All married people—or at least married women—are shaking their heads in agreement. (Married men aren’t reading this.)

One of the things you learn over time is that when you marry another woman’s son you suddenly cease being able to do anything right. You can’t iron “…too much starch”, “…too little starch”, “In the old days we didn’t have spray starch.” You can’t cook. “What is this?” “This isn’t healthy.” “He only likes MY meatloaf.” You can’t do anything right. Later on, you learn just how inept you are at raising children.

Another thing you learn over time but what my sister failed to realize is that in-laws should be seen and not heard.

My sister invited her in-laws-to-be to come up to Rhode Island and participate in the planning of the wedding. I know--your brain is screaming, “NOOOOooooo.” Well, yup; that’s what she did. This was not a good idea and everyone knew it. I was happy because I didn’t have to attend this planning session. I hadn’t been invited.

Right about the time I was laughing and doing a happy dance the phone rang.

Here is where you think my sister asked me to be in the wedding. Here is where you think I get talked into wearing an ugly and expensive dress. Here is where none of that happened.

The phone call started out heading in that direction but swerved violently and without warning.

“You can be in the wedding if you want to..."

“Oh no, that’s OK."

“…but what I really need is someone to yell and make sure that everything goes the way I want to."

Backed into a corner, I could only say, “I will do whatever you need me to do."

In the back of my mind I was thinking that being the Wedding Yeller wasn’t a bad gig. I mean you pay your money and the place takes care of everything, right?

“Well, that is what I really need for you to do."

OK.

“Sure. But don’t they handle that? Won’t The Village Inn handle all of that?"

“Well, not really. I’m having custom linens, so they will need to be dropped off and probably set up because I think they will only put their own linens on the table, and then there are the fish—the timing of placing the fish on the table has to be just right. We don’t want them to die..."

The list went on and on but to me she sounded like the teacher in Charlie Brown.

I interrupted.

"Why are you having custom linens?"

“Because I don’t want just plain white linens..."

My mind flipped through pictures of all of the weddings I had been to, searching in vain for a picture of the tablecloths. Not one. I couldn’t even remember the tablecloths at my own wedding. I think they were white.

What had I gotten myself into?

The Wedding, Part 7--Gale Force Winds

WARNING! The following is a work of fiction. Anyone having any problem with it at all should contact

someonewhogivesashit@nosenseofhumor.com 

We had come up with a solution to some of our dilemmas--if only the bride would agree. But life being what it is and Colleen being who she is that was easier said than done. Colleen was in Europe and pretty much unreachable. She called home on Mother’s Day and told my mother everything was “on hold” until her return.

Someday, I too am going to get the world to stop for me.

I know what you’re thinking; “It is her wedding."

True. It was her wedding, but she wanted the wedding on Labor Day and while she was celebrating her “pre-honey moon” and getting a tan, the clock was ticking. Almost all things are possible--but not ALL things are possible in FOUR MONTHS and given that little reality; she needed to make some decisions.

Personally, I was hoping she would decide to get married while away and just have a party to celebrate when she came back but…it wasn’t the first time I’d had my hopes dashed.

Finally, the day of her return arrived, and when she landed--she had made some decisions.

The wedding would be before the summer ended or they would wait until next summer. They would get married on Veterans Day. They would get married around Christmas. They would not get married in October because that was when all the Jewish High Holy Days occur.

Then, she made some more decisions.

They didn’t want to wait until next summer. November was out because places at the beach close in November. Christmas was out for the same reason November was out. October would do because there were actually a few days that didn’t actually fall on the Jewish High Holy days.

Some calculating of when sunset occurs in October was done using complicated algorithms and wishful thinking and it was decided that they could, in fact, get married on a Saturday—after sunset—by the Cantor and Father Joe at the Village Inn.

I know those of you who are familiar with New England are experiencing a nagging feeling at the back of your mind. You have that feeling—that something-about-this-isn’t-right feeling. Nope, good guess, but it isn’t the fact that October is in the middle of hurricane season, although that is true. Think harder. What could possibly be wrong with a wedding in October at the beach at night?

Ok, I’ll give you one more hint. My sister had insisted that the ceremony be outdoors.

Yup. The ceremony was scheduled to begin—after sunset—at 5:30, outside on the deck of the Village Inn, on the water in October.

Just one phrase comes to mind--Gale Force Winds.

The Wedding, Part 6--Under the Moon and a Chuppa

It turns out, my sister had decided on Labor Day Weekend without checking to see if there was someplace that could actually do the wedding on Labor Day Weekend—so even though we had a cantor, and could probably find a priest--we didn’t have a place for the cantor and the Priest To Be Named Later to do their thing.

Normally, the bride drives around and visits all the reception sites and chooses a place. My sister lives in Virginia and the wedding was to be held in Rhode Island and after announcing her engagement and her desire for a wedding FOUR MONTHS AWAY, she got on a plane with the fiancé and took off to Europe for two weeks on a pre-honeymoon extravaganza. Leaving vague instructions, no checkbook, and the statement, “I want to be married on Labor Day.” Super Mom and her trusty sidekick—me—to the rescue.

Colleen had looked on-line and fell in love with a place called The Village Inn. In my sisters’ defense, The Village Inn is lovely. It has a deck on the third floor off the main ballroom that overlooks the ocean and the crashing surf. It is large enough to handle the 300 guests she was planning to invite and the food was rumored to be wonderful.

At this point I will refrain from telling you what I think about inviting 300 people to a wedding because I can’t figure out how to do it without using some pretty foul language, but I don’t even know 300 people. My wedding had about 100 people—give or take a few. 300 people? Who the hell does she think she is? Jackie O’Nassis? Anyway...

She fell in love with The Village Inn. Nothing else would do. It had to be The Village Inn—or something just like it.

I was to meet my mother at 06:00 and we would chart our course. We would visit 9,000 wedding venues and report back to Colleen—who was probably lying on a topless beach somewhere on the Riviera. I hadn’t even seen pictures of the Riviera.

Here and now, I feel compelled to tell you that I don’t own a coat. I own a winter jacket and the black overcoat I wear to weddings, funerals and job interviews but I don’t own a normal coat. I tell you this because the Saturday we were to visit the bazillion reception sites it rained. It was windy. It was cold. I don’t own a jacket and figured we’d be mostly inside so what did it matter? It mattered. It was freezing! We had to walk 8 miles from parking lots to the buildings and all of them were on the water. The news was calling the storm a Nor-Easter and showing pictures of the Massachusetts coast line being washed into the ocean. We were all of twenty-five minutes away from that.

We visited each of the sites and asked the following question.

"Are you available Labor Day Weekend?"

Their response was always the same.

“For what year?"

No one was available on Labor Day or if they were it wasn’t anyplace Colleen would even consider. Finally we gave up and crawled into a restaurant. It was about two in the afternoon and we were soaked and cold and pissy. Actually, we were probably more pissy than the other things.

Things had tanked early and my mother, who as I mentioned is the neatest person on earth, started to get surly. Sometimes when my mother gets surly she loses the ability to speak and she growls. I had to pull her out of the last place we went because I think they were going to call the police and because they didn’t have an opening for Labor Day.

We ordered coffee and burgers and while I contemplated the medicinal properties of tequila shooters, the germ of an idea began to take root in my mind. The bottom line was that we were running out of ideas and possibilities. The only way this was going to happen was if we punted.

I opened my mouth and offered the only solution I could come up with.

“What if we do the wedding on a Saturday? We do the Catholic part first, take pictures, have the cocktail hour and then, after the sun goes down, we all move out to the deck and  beneath the moon and the chuppa--the cantor does his thing. We do all the good parts of the Jewish ceremony, offer a special blessing and step on the glasses. The priest can come back out and together with the cantor--join the bride and the groom, the Catholic and the Jew as one. It gives each religion its’ own little moment in the sun—or moon or whatever--and deals with our scheduling issue."

My mother just stared at me.

I didn’t think it was that crazy but I had lost perspective a while back. I had no way of knowing if I had just suggested the equivalent of getting married on the moon.

I could see her mulling the idea over, looking for holes.

Finally she said, “That could work."

The Wedding, Part 5--Hugging, Goldfish and Bridesmaid Dresses

Here, I am going to pause and introduce you to my cousin Kathy. Kathy is my good twin which conversely makes me her evil twin. Together we are one balanced human being—without each other, well...life would be problematic.

We keep each other sane. We admit to each other all of those crazy thoughts that we have that we think no one else has. So far I haven’t admitted to a crazy thought that Kathy hasn’t said she’s had too; although sometimes I think she is just being kind.

Anyway—after the craziness with the wedding began, I called Kathy. I called. I yelled. I came close to crying. I cursed. I stamped my feet and then finally she told me to dial it back because I was scaring her. Then, I took a deep breath and she slowly and calmly walked me through it.

We talked about hugging first.

My sister is a huggy person. I am not. My sister was going to want to hug me and in my slightly crazed—ok majorly neurotic—state it was really bugging me. Kathy had a solution. We worked out a hug quota. We figured three. I would have to hug my sister three times: once when I saw her the first time after she got engaged, once after I threw her her bridal shower and again after she got married. Two congratulation hugs and one thank you hug. Kathy assured me I could do that. I agreed.

Then we talked about who was going to pay for this extravaganza. We decided that I should not be bitter because Colleen was planning the Wedding of the Century and would probably get more money from my Dad than I did, because I had had a really great wedding and more money wouldn’t have made it any better—plus I had stopped playing the life isn’t fair game a long time ago and I wasn’t in the mood to resurrect it.

After we got past that--the conversation turned fun—mean spirited--but fun.

Since, my sister was going with an ocean theme and wanted Goldfish in bowls as centerpieces—apparently in the world Colleen occupies Goldfish are saltwater creatures—we devised party games to play at the wedding.

How much alcohol can a Goldfish drink?

Which is more lethal to a Goldfish, vodka or beer?

And then we pondered the thought that if you add food coloring to the fish’s water the fish will absorb it and turn that color.

We planned the shower. We decided to play games there too. We talked about getting a big old plastic swimming pool filled with goldfish and the guests could catch their favors. This led to the thought that we could issue fishing poles to the wedding guests and after a few drinks re-enact some of the scenes from Old Man and The Sea or Moby Dick.

After that, I started to relax. I was almost having fun when Kathy asked the question--the question that all women over the age of nineteen fear.

"Will she ask you to be in the wedding?"

The room started to spin and I had visions of hoop skirts, crinolines and really ugly dresses. I could see standing for hours taking picture after picture after picture of hideous posed photos with the Bride’s family, the Groom’s family, the Bride and Groom's family, the limo driver...

I put my head between my knees and breathed deeply until I remembered that my sister would probably not ask me to be in the wedding.

Ok, get ready to be appalled.

I didn’t ask my sister to be my Maid of Honor. I know tradition and familial duty dictate that the sister is ALWAYS the Maid of Honor. I know I told you that I was the good kid. All of that is true, but I didn’t ask my sister to be my Maid of Honor. I’m not sure why except that my sister and I didn’t get along well when I got married. Having said that, it doesn’t seem like enough of a reason for me to have balked expectation and not have had her as my Maid of Honor. I remember hearing all of the stories and warnings from my Aunt and my Mother and my cousin Kathy. I remember them telling me I would regret it, but I didn’t ask her. I don’t remember why exactly I stood my ground except that I didn’t want to ask her. She was just a plain old Bridesmaid and my friend Amy, who I have seen a total of three times since my wedding, was my Maid of Honor. Still, they were wrong; I don’t regret it and I’m probably going to hell for it.

In any case, my sister probably wouldn’t ask me to be in her wedding.

But there was still a chance...

The Wedding, Part 4--A Rabbi and a Priest walk into a bar...

I may have left you with the wrong impression in part three. The wedding itself wasn’t a problem—everyone was very happy that Colleen was getting married—thrilled, actually. Colleen has wanted to get married for a long time and when women get desperate to get married--men can smell it on them. In the same way dogs can smell fear, men can smell desperation and it sends them running for the hills. So the fact that Colleen was getting married was a good thing, a relief, a cause for celebration. It was making it all come together that was a problem.

My mother—who knows a lot about being Jewish because she spent a few years being the Executive Director of the Jewish Community Center—assumed that since the fiancé was Jewish that the wedding should follow certain religious customs. In order to make sure that she was doing everything right—she went out and bought a book. No doubt it was called, “How to Plan a Jewish Wedding,” or something like that. What it should have been called was “How to make life more difficult in thirty-seconds flat."

Now every religion has its rules regarding weddings. The problem is that each religion’s rules violate the other religions rules, and although I hadn't given it any thought until that moment, it suddenly occured to me that they probably do it that way on purpose.

Jewish people can’t get married between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday because that is their Sabbath. OK, not a huge problem that leaves Saturday night and Sunday during the day. Except for the fact that sundown on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend probably happens somewhere around 8:30 pm. So, Sunday during the day would be good—except my sister didn’t want to get married during the day. She wanted to get married at night. Well, that’s OK too, because Labor Day weekend means Monday is a holiday.  OK Sunday night. First problem solved. On to the next one...

Apparently, it is against Jewish law for a Jew to marry a non-Jew. This was somehow more problematic that the ‘what-day-to-get-married’ issue because my sister is Catholic and she was not going to convert. Even if she was willing to convert, it would take more than four months. At this point, if I were in charge, I would have told my sister to elope and we’d throw her a big party when she came back…but my mother donned her Super Suit and started making phone calls. Several rabbis were very nice but said, “No.” A few rabbis were not so nice and said, “No.” And then Rabbi Tanenbaum or whatever said some really rotten things and I think I heard my mother muttering something about fire bombing temples, but I couldn’t swear to it in a court of law.

She then moved onto cantors. Now, my knowledge of cantors is limited to the fact that in the movie The Jazz Singer Neil Diamond’s father was one. So I can’t really tell you what it means but I think it’s kind of like a minister—less than a priest or not as anal about the rules or something. In any case, she found two cantors who would be willing to perform the ceremony. Yea! Now we needed a priest.

The priest wasn’t a huge problem. When my family needs a priest we call Father Joe. Father Joe does all kinds of things—like performing the marriage ceremony between my cousin Jimmy—who has been divorced and didn’t get an annulment-to his second wife Chris. Even more outside the rules was the fact that he did it at the O Club and not in the church. Even worse—or better, depending on your point of view—he baptized all three of my kids. At the last Christening, he announced that it was time for the annual Hunsinger Christening and likened it to Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny coming once a year whether you liked it or not. Father Joe is cool. We love Father Joe. Father Joe was booked for the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend.

The Wedding, Part 3--It really is a problem...

Before we go on with this tale, it is time you were introduced to the idea of—the concept of my mother.

My mother is one of the best people on earth. She is smart and funny—a wise-ass of mass proportion. She has more energy than a classroom full of preschoolers and she is incredibly competent at almost everything she does. She is, however, on occasion—a maniac.

Give my mother a task—any task—and she will get it done. It will be done well, it will be done right and it will be done in record time. Having said that, it is likely that there will be a few casualties along the way.

Part of my not-so-psyched reaction to my sisters’ nerve-wracking nuptial news was the thought that this might just be the task that my mother undertook that killed me.

The details started rolling in.

"Blue and white poof things on the table..."

"Ocean theme—gold fish in goldfish bowls as centerpieces..."

"She wants to get married as soon as possible..."

"The wedding is set for Labor Day…Labor Day? What are you crazy that is barely four months away? Labor Day..."

"Crashing surf is a requirement..."

"The service will be an interfaith ceremony..."

Oh, did I forget to tell you that my sisters’ fiancé is Jewish? Well, he is and just in case you hadn’t guessed yet—my sister is not.

Now, part of my family is really Catholic. My immediate family is…um…well—I think the phrase is lapsed. While growing up, neither my sister nor I attended Church unless a wedding, a funeral or a trip to visit the Catholic relatives required it. We were both baptized and confirmed and both attended Catholic College—because my father was a professor there and tuition was free—but non-practicing would have been an understatement when describing our religious status.

My sister had a phase is college where she became more Catholic. I think it had a lot to do with majoring in philosophy and over-imbibing but bottom line is Colleen became more Catholic. This was OK with everyone, but her new found faith made her feel the need to share and talking about religion is one of my least favorite things—I always want to shout—“I’m a sinner. I get it. I’m going to hell. I’m OK with it. Leave me alone!"

So my sister is Catholic, her fiancé is Jewish and we are having an interfaith wedding with blue and white poof things, goldfish and crashing surf in FOUR MONTHS. Ready, set, go...!

My mother in her own special way—and using her serial-killer-no-problem-here voice said, “Not a problem."

Except, it really was a problem.

The Wedding, Part 2--There is no end to my excitement

Now, I know what you’re thinking and you’re right, I am a bitch. For the record though, I had some help getting this way. My sister is NOT an easy person to get along with. Ok, so I’m probably not either but that isn’t really the point. My sister was going to get married—that was a good thing—but the planning and executing of the wedding was going to suck the life right out of me and everyone within a thirty mile radius: thirty miles being a conservative estimate.

An hour passed before I couldn’t take the pressure anymore. I thought for sure that my mother would have called me by now, either to share the news or to chew my ass for not having been enthusiastic enough or nice enough to my sister. When the phone didn’t ring I started to worry. Maybe my mother was so mad at me that she couldn’t even talk to me. Maybe she wasn’t ever going to talk to me again. We’ll deal with and discuss my attachment issues later, but the truth is when my mother gets mad at me I feel fourteen all over again. I get that sick feeling in my stomach and I start to sweat.

I really didn’t have time for that and it’s better to know than not, so I called her. I was greeted with, “So you heard the news?” Yes.” I said it hesitantly, shooting for neutral, not sure what my sister had reported back. “Were you excited?”

Harmless question, I know but it was the way she said it that made it a minefield. She said it in the same tone of voice she had used when I was fourteen and she was lecturing me on why I shouldn’t call my sister fat. “It upsets her.” Well no shit it upsets her; that’s why I said it. It was the same tone of voice she used whenever I told her I talked to my sister and that my sister was mad at me. The tone of voice she used when she asked me, “What did you do now?"

The funny thing about all of this is that I am the good kid. I am the one the tone works on. My sister Colleen couldn’t care less about the tone of voice my mother used or, for that matter, what my mother said. My sister didn’t care what anyone said. She was oblivious, impervious and often clueless. Guilt didn’t work with her at all—because, according to Colleen, Colleen was never wrong. According to Colleen the world owed her, she was worth it, she could have it all. Colleen was some weird combination of Machiavelli, the Clairol and Enjoli commercials all rolled into one. It was disturbing, distressing and annoying and now, on top of her usual stampede through life, Colleen was going to have a wedding.

As it turned out, my mother wasn’t mad at me; Colleen hadn’t called her back after talking to me so as far as my mother knew or could prove I had been suitably excited, thrilled and whatever else one is supposed to be when these moments occur. Shit I wasn’t even those things when I got engaged. All I remember about getting engaged was that it happened on the beach in Hawaii and the next day we went for a helicopter ride over a volcano. I was sure we would fall to our deaths and no one would ever get to see my ring. We didn’t fall out of the sky; I kept the ring and have survived eight years of marriage. Now my sister’s wedding was going to kill me.

Details about the upcoming nuptials were sketchy. My mother didn’t know when or where or anything else. She believed the wedding would be held here, since here is where all of the brides’ relatives lived and that would be most convenient, but nothing was for sure. She’d let me know.

Twenty minutes later the planning began.

The Wedding, Part 1--The Engagement

The phone rang at 8:20 in the morning. I was yelling at the boys to get their coats on. I was yelling at my daughter to put her shoes on. The dogs were barking. The bus was honking. It was utter chaos; my typical morning routine.

I answered and there was a screaming, squealing sound. It took a second for my brain to process it, but finally I recognized the voice as belonging to my sister. She was saying something about being engaged.

At this moment my brain went everywhere except where it was supposed to. It was supposed to go all happy and giddy and jump up and down and do the excited thing. It didn’t. My brain has been on strike for months and only functions at odd and unpredictable intervals and even at those moments it has an attitude.

So my sister screamed she was engaged and my brain heard the honking of the bus, the crying of my 5 year old, and the shattering of some glass object the big lumbering dog had knocked over. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I’m sure was a voice screaming, “Don’t do it!” but I didn’t even really have time to focus on that. All I thought was, “shit."

I know it wasn’t a very charitable thought, but that is honest-to-God what I thought. I am very proud that I didn’t say it out loud. But, I know you know that if “shit” is your first thought then by the time you get around to remembering that that wasn’t supposed to be your first thought, figuring out what your reaction was supposed to be and forcing that reaction; you are already 3.7 seconds too late. It was morning and I hadn’t had enough coffee so I was even slower.

I could feel the look on my face and hear the tone in my voice and I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. Both the face and the voice were the ones you use when you thank your mother-in-law for the Christmas sweater that has an embroidered Rudolph on it with jingle bells sown right over your nipples. I tried but failed miserably. My brain called me an idiot and went to the Bahamas for a Mai Tai—it’s five o’clock somewhere.

My sister sped along in her description of how he had asked her and all I could wonder was who gets engaged at eight in the morning and did everyone brush their teeth before the amazing moment? She talked about the 1.25 carat ring with two sapphires—one on either side. And I wondered if her fiancé was knocking over 7/11’s in his spare time. Just when I thought she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen or break the world’s record for most words spoken without taking a breath she asked me if I wanted to talk to him.

As I said before, my brain had left the building and again I was slow to respond and when I did it was with a noncommittal, “Um, yeah, sure.” Then for good measure trying to repair the damage, I said way too enthusiastically. “YES! Let me talk to him."

My sister lives with her boyfriend. I have met him three times at crowded family functions. We have exchanged maybe three sentences. He seems nice enough. He likes to play with my kids. He seems normal enough, which makes me wonder why he would want to marry into my family. He’s OK, but he’s quiet and I do not know what to do with quiet people. I haven’t ever known what to do around or say to them. In college I liked the quiet guys; I wondered what made them tick. But I’m not brain damaged and after dating a few of them realized that most quiet guys are quiet because they know that girls like me will sleep with quiet guys to find out what they are thinking. Anyway, my sisters’ fiancé is quiet.

Colleen passed him the phone and I said congratulations. I’m not sure what he said because my sisters’ fiancé is also Russian and he has an accent and I have trouble with accents so I said congratulations in three different ways and then asked for my sister back. When she got back on the line, I told her I had to go because the bus was waiting. She said she’d talk to me later and hung up. There was a moment when I thought maybe I had gotten away with it. For a brief shining moment in time I thought that maybe Colleen had been so excited that she had missed my less than enthusiastic response. Half a second later my brain returned, suntanned and well-rested and said, “Not a chance. You’re screwed."