The invitations have arrived!

 

And after much stalling, procrastinating and futzing with the various address lists (which unfortunately coincided with a computer crash and much loss of data), the Save the Date magnets will go into the mail this week.  As we sat around the table addressing envelopes for the Save the Dates, it struck us that the wedding countdown is now taking on more of a realistic meaning.  At 100 days out, it’s no longer a fuzzy romantic fantasy, it’s serious business.

I have noticed (with more than just a little trepidation) that I am becoming increasingly emotional as the wedding inches ever closer.  I read a story on the Internet about the last days of a beloved elderly German Shepherd and burst into tears.  I looked though some photos of Christina when she was in elementary school and became misty and nostalgic even though I remember full well that those years were not easy for either of us.  The first notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D had me reaching for the tissue box.  

This is not a good sign.

I reasoned with myself that perhaps I was getting all the tearful emotions out of the way before the wedding and that I would be dry-eyed, calm and poised on the day of the big event.  Friends and family who have been down this road before me laugh heartily at my suggestion that I will be able to navigate the entire day in a composed, pleasantly smiling manner.  Every one of them tells me that waterproof cosmetics are the only way to go.  There are the occasional horror stories about running, dripping noses and no tissues to sop up the mess.  Uncontrollable coughing jags during the ceremony triggered by choked-back tears.  Or low-cut dresses which reveal hives and emotional blotchiness.  At this point, I am considering wearing a turtleneck and plastic bib with a pop-up tissue dispenser.

At my first wedding, I was anything but emotional.  I was the epitome of left-brained organization,

planning and executing the entire day to within an inch of its life.  There was nothing romantic or sentimental about it:  I was the hard-boiled general contractor, overseeing this event with all its vendors, guests and arrangements…..I should have walked down the aisle with a clipboard rather than a bouquet!

My mother was a shadow in the background of all this fuss.  Since she and my dad arrived from California the Thursday before the wedding, there was really nothing for her to do or manage.  Not that I would have released my stranglehold on anything, anyway, and certainly not to her, given her recent emotional outbursts about how much money “all of this” (grand, sweeping gesture with both hands) was costing.

So here I am in the mother of the bride shoes, the overseer of Christina’s wedding, but now much more emotional and tender-hearted as I crack the whip over the heads of the various vendors.  

Perhaps the feelings of the past are finally welling up and spilling over.

Waterproof mascara and the giant economy size box of Kleenex it is!