Preface

Traditionally, the bride’s family pays for the lion’s share of the wedding, while the groom’s family pays for the rehearsal dinner. However, modern families are more sensible and many young couples who buy wedding rings in our shop have families that split many of the large wedding expenses. Of course, those lucky couples have families that are happy about their marriage. Anyone who is fortunate enough to have loving in-laws, even if they are nosy and a little judgmental, should give them a hug at least once a week.

Peter’s father was in the process of selling his jewelry store and moving back home to Hawaii. The store still had some debt and he did not have the money to help us out. Now that I know him better, I know that he would have thrown a rehearsal dinner if he could have. As it was, we were lucky to have him fly to the wedding from Hawaii. I am so happy that he was there.

Nancy had been getting her regular ‘loan’ payments from the shop but was focused on getting her new Colorado condominium outfitted and decorated. She never asked about nor offered any financial help. In fact, we never even received a wedding gift from her.

Peter wanted to go to Europe for our honeymoon. My father, who is a saint, bought us tickets to go to Europe as a wedding present, not once but twice because I misplaced the first set. He was able to get a refund but in the midst of all of the other wedding expenses, I felt like an irresponsible idiot. Peter and I paid for some of the expenses of the wedding, but my father paid for pretty much everything.

We got married at my Aunt and Uncle’s (actually my Great Aunt and Uncle) home in Arlington, Texas. Their home is a traditional Southern-style, 2 story, brick home with columns and a winding staircase. The front doors open to the front porch which allows a full view of the winding staircase. My Uncle Clyde is a retired judge and performed the ceremony. Poor Peter not only had to ask my father for permission to marry me, but he had to meet and greet Uncle Clyde, a former Judge of the Texas State Supreme Court, before he would perform the ceremony.

Peter had asked his grandfather, Nancy’s father, for a loan to make sure he had enough money to really enjoy Europe. We were going to land in Paris, buy a TGV pass and explore. But we did want to have extra money to maybe do a few fancy hotel nights since it was our honeymoon. His grandfather generously agreed and Nancy said that she would get the check. As the weeks passed I realized that we were leaving for Texas in a few days and asked Peter about the check. We needed to get it converted into cash before we went to Texas since our bank did not have branches there. Nancy said she understood and would, "get it to us."

When it became clear that no one from Peter’s family was going to throw a rehearsal dinner, my cousin and her husband organized a backyard barbeque with Texas brisket and all of the traditional Southern food I love so much. Nancy never said a word about the rehearsal dinner or offered a dime to defray the expense.

sidebar***Our wedding day weather was perfect. We even had a slight breeze which, if you know anything about Texas in June, is rare!  Despite all of the other antics I am describing, our wedding was amazing.  The flowers were beautiful and fragrant, we had good food, music, dancing, catching up time with family, and a whole lot of fun.  The police showed up due to a noise complaint but with a number of attorneys in the family, they were dispatched and the party went on until we were too tired to smile anymore.***sidebar

Nancy sobbed so profusely through the ceremony that afterwards Peter’s father said she could have been a paid Roman mourner in a past life. It was pretty embarrassing since I knew that they weren’t tears of joy.

Peter’s best man got really drunk and gave a toast during which he kept stopping and saying, "Nancy, Nancy, Nancy," while rolling his eyes and smirking. I was terrified that he was going to tell some wholly inappropriate story with her in the starring role, so I just stood there smiling and hoping that I did not have to rush over and grab the microphone away from him.

We spent the night in a hotel room near the airport but came back the next morning because my father was hosting a brunch. I realized that we had never gotten the cash from the check from Peter’s grandfather. Peter and I talked about it and decided that Nancy probably did not want to hand us cash at the reception and would give it to us when she was seeing us off. We were planning on using our Visa for most of the expenses and in the ATM machines because the exchange rate was better than the bank ATM card. When Nancy arrived she handed us a check, which on a Sunday in Texas with no branches of your bank in town is about as helpful as a piece of paper with an IOU written on it. I couldn’t believe that she had done that to us, for our honeymoon and our wedding. I just turned and walked away.

She chased me down to let me know that the photographer for our wedding, a good friend of my father’s, had missed all of the good shots but she had them on her camera. The photographer is not a wedding photographer at all, but a professional fashion and print photographer who regularly flies all over the world to do lay-outs. He did our wedding as a personal favor to my father. I knew that she was just trying to make me feel badly and for a few moments, it worked. Oddly enough, the film in her camera must have been bad because weeks later she said her wedding photographs didn’t turn out. Probably just a coincidence.

What really stinks is that even though I knew that she was being hateful and mean and I didn’t deserve it, it still hurt. It hurt a lot and I couldn’t believe that she could say the things she said and do the things she did and not know that. She had to know how much her actions hurt and she did them anyway, which really makes it even worse.