Chirky

A friend of mine recently became engaged and is planning her wedding. I received an email from her this week, updating me on "the latest." Her description of the events was ridiculously bizarre, and warranted a public flogging sharing with The Internet. Please note that all names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent:

From: Hildegard
To: Jes
Date: January 3, 2006
Re: wedding plans

As for the wedding planning, it's coming along pretty well. So far, our biggest obstacle has been (and continues to be) finding an officiant to perform the ceremony. The man who has been my mom's family's minister (and has known me since I was born) had to have heart bypass surgery recently and will likely not be well enough in time for his doc to ok him to travel to Texas (he lives in KY).

My other preference was to have my favorite college English professor perform the ceremony, as he is also an ordained Baptist minister, but he has a fellowship in Michigan this spring that will most likely require him to be away until after our wedding date. SAD! :( So, at this point we're probably just going to have to have a JP perform the ceremony (unless Dr. Gunther can convince the folks in Michigan to let him fly down to TX for the weekend and then fly right back up to finish up his fellowship).

Other than that, the only recent drama has been my mom who:

(1) announced over the holidays that she really wants to wear an extravagant, lacy Victorian dress - complete with a parasol - to the wedding because she feels like she should be the most beautiful woman there (no, I'm not kidding) and

(2) called me on Friday evening to tell me that she wanted me to "...grant a request blindly..." without first hearing what her request was - which turned out to be that she wanted me to add two of her friends (whom I've never even met before in my entire life) to the guest list because she felt slighted that Otto and I had invited Opal's kids (my step-siblings) which meant there would be more people invited that were Dad's family than her family, so she should be allowed to invite some friends to make up the difference (again, I'm not kidding).

All I could think was, "What is this...the Crips and the Bloods???? Are they going to be wearing gang colors and flashing gang symbols and roaming around with their posse so they can 'represent'?"

At this point, I could no longer stifle the laughter. Poor Hildegard. In addition to the stress of planning a wedding, her mother will likely be sauntering around North Spoon Ranch dressed in lace and gingerly holding a parasol to shield the sun from her delicate skin. Except it will be an evening wedding, so perhaps she'll just be protecting herself from the unpredictable lighting cast by the candles.

And as if that wasn't enough, Hildegard will have to seat the Crips and the Bloods on opposite sides of the ballroom. Unfortunate family seating, but if it prevents a massacre, so be it.