"The bride, lovely herself, and lovely by her side a bevy of bright nymphs, with sober grace came glittering like a star, and took her place." *

It’s all Lazy Cow’s fault that I am dying to write a blog post in the style of Raffaella Barker’s Hens Dancing. Which is only just, as the wedding I attended yesterday would fit right into one of Barker’s delightful and rustic novels. (But you'll have to bear with my rather more prosaic prose.)

H and I should not be allowed to attend weddings together; we are a bad bad influence on each other, and spend much of the ceremony stifling giggles and shaking with silent laughter. We can’t even look at each other. We’re like a couple of VERY immature teenagers. The first thing that set us off was H’s colleague’s wife who wore big black sunglasses in the church, throughout the whole ceremony. Next came the minister, with a ridiculously Dickensian name and references to his “clan” of thirteen brothers and sisters. We wondered if his brothers and sisters were named for months of the year as he was. The soloist – a very black man with very white teeth that matched his even whiter suit, shirt, and tie – embarked on a soulful rendition of "This Little Light of Mine," fabulously incongruent in this Wonderbread enclave of Protestantism, and I nearly peed my pants. When the recessional turned out to be a booming version of the Hallelujah Chorus (the bride is 45), H and I totally lost it, but fortunately at the point the ceremony was mercifully concluded and no one noticed our childish behavior. I am not proud of our juvenile and politically incorrect behavior, but gosh, it was fun.

I had wound up wearing a little black wrap dress I bought at Target two years ago, and found in the back of my closet, tags still on. It looked far better as a maternity dress than as a regular dress, and paired with a dangly black and silver necklace and black slingback pumps, served remarkably well.

I wasn’t sure if I would be woefully overdressed for the reception at the bride’s brother’s house, out in the middle of nowhere; we had no idea what to expect. The trailer homes we passed on the way there did not fill me with especially high expectations.

Turns out I was appropriately attired, with the exception that every other woman there experienced –except for the old ladies in their orthopedic shoes and the teenagers in their flipflops: heels sinking into the grass every time we took a step. By the salad course, I think everyone had kicked off their shoes and we were all fine.

The backyard was actually several acres of perfect, green, rolling grass, causing the cavorting flower girls and ringbearers to resemble nothing so much as a Ralph Lauren ad. The white tent was strung with Christmas lights, and the tables were clustered with candles and flowers, and the food was delicious.

The Port-a-Potties concerned me, but by a certain time I had to pee so badly I didn’t care what I had to brave. However, they were the nicest Port-a-Potties I have EVER seen, and were cleaner than my bathroom at home.

By ten we had eaten the cake (white almond with buttercream frosting) and H had handily put away several large whiskeys, and so we hurtled home on Rte 30 listening to a Penguins victory, and then to bed.

Lovely day. The bride was radiant, the groom was gracefully tipsy, and other than the fact that the caterer ran out of coffee, everything else was pretty much perfect.


*******************

* John Dryden