MOB Scene

Life is Good.  Sweet, and Short. 

And the Ordinary truly is the Extraordinary.

Our beautiful, clever, witty and wonderful daughter, Wilma married a truly special, generous, loving & handsome man, Garth, last month. They planned a simple, very meaningful, private ceremony, followed by a low-key and very fun dinner reception with dancing.

From the moment the engagement was announced, people asked me “Are you stressed?! Is it awful?!”  It seemed every time I turned around, someone was asking “Are you okay?  Isn’t this stressful?!”
Well… no, I wasn’t stressed; it wasn’t awful.  It was:  Happy. Simple. Low key.  The couple chose the things they truly cared about.  The minor things were left to me.  Anytime I asked a question, the answer was

“We just want to get married.” 

If there had been any stress, that statement certainly would have eliminated it.  They were focused on the marriage, not a production.  It was wonderful.
The Wedding Day:  Things went well.  Lovely wedding, beautiful bride, handsome groom, gorgeous bridal party, adorable flower girls and ring bearer, officious and gracious judge,  good food, wonderful guests, fun dancing, beautiful floral decor by an outstanding creative and talented lady, and some great photos by two special and also creative, talented people.

Life is good.  All that truly mattered was perfect:  they’re in love, they genuinely like each other,  they’re married,  content & happy.

“However,”  you are asking,  “what about this MOB Scene?”

My experience as Mother of the Bride, “M.O.B.” — as all the thousands of “how to” and “what to do” blogs, magazines, and articles, & apparently every person on the street call us — well, my ten days surrounding the wedding were far more interesting than I’d anticipated.

Four days before the wedding day, I visited my sweet hairdresser for fresh highlights, and had an appointment with the esthetician to have my  eyebrows properly shaped so that I would be the lovely M.O.B. in all the photos for posterity.  Things went a bit awry, and I was left with rather red abrasions – not wax burns, but genuine abrasions –  on my eyelids.  Fortunately, I had some prescription antibiotic cream on hand at home, and used that – it helped immensely.

The morning of the wedding the hair dresser worked her magic to give me some curls that would hold up throughout the day and evening, and the make-up artist did an outstanding job of concealing my still-red eyelids.  More make-up than I usually wear (being none) but necessary for the photos.

That afternoon, I pulled on the beautiful black silk dress I’d fallen in love with, and began to zip it up.  Hmmm… not “stuck,” exactly, and the dress wasn’t too tight, but there seemed to be a problem.  I brushed it off as M.O.B. low-key stress, and consulted Wilt.  He, too, could not make it zip.  We consulted Walter.  Walter could not make it zip.  (Major clue missed here:  you know you’re in trouble when an engineer cannot make a zipper work properly.)  I removed the dress, examined it closely, and discovered the teeth on one side of the zipper at the mid-point were curled inward… on the brand-new, wonderful I-am-in-love-with-this-dress dress.  One more try.  Wilt methodically & successfully un-curled the zipper teeth as he zipped it.  Yay!  Dress on and zipped!  For about 30 seconds.  Zipper then said “I will not stay zipped here where my teeth are curled;  I do not care what you do.”  Next dilemma was to get out of said dress – it being zipped at the bottom and the top… Oh, let’s skip that part of the story.

Free of my beloved dress, I gave it a long, sad look, but breathed a sigh of relief, for there had been no time to return the first purchased dress which I’d felt was “OK,” but didn’t really love.  So on I popped it – a Back-Up Dress!  How fortunate!   I’d forgotten, though, that I’d lost fifteen pounds over the summer, and so was looking at myself in the full-length mirror — complete with my “well concealed” eyelids — wearing what resembled a lovely black satin feed bag.  But…

Ninety minutes to the wedding!  Let’s go!

For my next trick — which really pleased my very efficient-and-slightly-OCD-like-his-mother-son — I stepped out the door & got the heel of my shoe caught in between the boards on our porch.  R e a l l y  stuck.  I don’t ever recall having gotten a heel stuck in my entire life, but after all, it was a truly special day.  Finally, I removed my foot from the shoe & while I hopped a bit, Walter was able to retrieve it from the jaws of the porch without breaking the heel.  Once again, we set off, with Wilt nervously advising that I should not fall down the porch steps, and I’m pretty sure I heard Walter muttering that we needed a protective bubble for me.  I thought I was holding up rather well, all things considered.

Staying with the chronology:  Wedding was lovely.

The following day, we enjoyed a small brunch here at the house for out-of-town family.  Ahhh… A day of total relaxation.

That evening, I ran out of my prescription antibiotic cream for the eyelids, which now looked only like I’d received two good scratches from a cat.  Being resourceful, I applied an over-the-counter antibiotic cream from the medicine cabinet, and went off to bed, to dream the happy, contented dreams of the M.O.B. with healing eyelids.

Next morning, I awoke to a red, itchy, throbbing swollen face:  allergic reaction to the OTC cream.   Our skilled, good-natured and compassionate  physician prescribed a low dose of a steroid which took care of the problem.  Third and last night of the dosage, however, I had a reaction to the steroid:  36 hours of total insomnia, followed by 48 hours of sleepy exhaustion.  I had no idea what fun a pharmaceutical roller coaster can be.

The following Sunday evening, Wilt and I enjoyed a light supper of some leftovers.  At exactly 6:55 pm, five minutes before we were to set off for the airport to pick up the returning-from-the-honeymoon newlyweds, I was stricken with a sudden, painful, violent case of apparent food poisoning from too-old leftovers, followed about thirty minutes later by an allergic reaction to the “returning” food:  my lips and tongue swelled, then my tongue broke out in hives.  Two adults in a panic:  Wilt certain I was about to die & shouting “We need an epi pen!” and me, splashing ice-cold water on my lips & tongue,  saying insistently, “Someone’s got to get to the airport!”   Friends were summoned for the airport trip to rescue Wilma and Garth, & a dose of antihistamine resolved my lip-tongue problem after a couple of hours.

Oh, yes.  Being the M.O.B. offers so many opportunities to make a scene.