(Continued)
When I arrived at the salon to get my hair done the morning of the wedding, the locks were so frozen that the owner couldn’t get the key in the door. After trying everything, we finally found a neighboring shop open, ran some hot water in a bucket and threw it on the door to thaw it. Meanwhile, Bob was getting a call to the reception hall because the cantankerous manager wouldn’t let in our friends who were catering the reception. After explanations, cajoling and threats, the codger finally relented. Fortunately I didn’t know about this circus until after the reception.
Finally at the church for the noon wedding, Bob’s mother refused to take her coat off to walk down the aisle, even through we’d shopped three times for a dress that suited her, having to bring them to her since she didn’t feel well enough to go out.
Then as I started down the aisle, I saw tiers of what-were-guaranteed-to-be “dripless” candles in front sputtering like firecrackers and sending up black clouds of smoke with globs of hot wax puddling on the church’s new carpet. Rather than preparing to take solemn vows, all I could think about was what the sanctuary superintendent was going to say about the candles. “Ida is going to kill me,” I whispered to Jim, the printer.
Immediately after Bob and I said, “I do,” Hilda demanded to be taken home, and she wanted Bob to do it. Little did I know, this was only the beginning of the competition between us for her son’s attention. She reluctantly agreed to let someone else drive her.
When we joined our guests at the reception hall after the photo session, I was mortified to discover that the club’s owners had “decorated” for Valentine’s Day with construction paper hearts taped to the walls. Classy.
After the reception, we went by the house to check on Bob’s mom, drop off my son, change clothes and greet the friend we were paying as a sitter to stay with the two of them. Ready to get the honeymoon underway, we threw our bags in the car and headed to Norfolk where we were staying on our wedding night so that we could be near the airport to take off the next day for our dream trip – skiing in Colorado. Only all flights had been cancelled due to the snow.
The next morning the maids walked in on us. Twice.
Around noon we headed to the airport, not knowing if our flight would make it out or not, but wonder of wonders, ours was the first flight out of Norfolk since the blizzard hit. Things were looking up! We spent the first two nights in Colorado Springs with an old college friend and her husband (thanks, Barb!), then skied Breckenridge the following day. At least, Bob skied Breckenridge. I stayed in the car with a migraine due to the change in altitude and “that time of the month.”
Yes, I had calculated very badly.
(To be continued)
