This weekend, Jonathan and I made the journey out to Merville, the delightfully rural community where I was lucky enough to pass my youth. This was not just another quick trip to see the family; we were there to celebrate and be merry, as my cousin Marissa tied the knot to her radical now-husband Steve.
We left Friday afternoon (early, despite the cantankerous rumblings from the elderly receptionist I am unfortunate enough to work with) and gained the peaceful solitude of my parent's house around 8 p.m. that evening.
My mum was busy decorating the wedding cake that would be served the next day. She's never taken any courses, but somehow manages to make the most beautiful cakes I've ever seen. However, the night before any event she has been hired to bake for, she can unfailingly be found in her kitchen swearing up a blue streak and generally having a bit of a nervous breakdown. Friday night was no exception, and we arrived just in time to calm her down, have some tea, and convince her that going to bed and finishing in the morning would help in preserving everyone's sanity, not least her own.
The next morning dawned clear and sunny, the first really hot day of the year. Jonathan and I were employed in ferrying this and that back and forth between my house and my aunt's house down the road (where the wedding was to be held). I came back from one such excersion to find my mum fuming as she put the finishing touches on the wedding cake.
Apparently my sister had called to ask if her husband could wear shorts to the wedding. When my mum voiced the opinion that shorts were perhaps not the most appropriate of wedding wear, my sister called her persnikity and they hung up on each other in snit.
I called my sister back in the hopes of peacekeeping (something I often feel called upon to do in my family) and told her that while everyone appeared to be wearing rather nice clothes, perhaps they could bring shorts to change into later.
Everyone thus appeased, I zipped upstairs to change into my own clothes and do something acceptable to my hair.
With half an hour to spare, we made our way down to the wedding site, where the wine was already flowing and the bride (not one to stand on tradition) was casually mingling with guests waiting for the ceremony to start.
It did, shortly thereafter. The bride, looking like a 40s movie star, walked across the lawn toward her intended, and I felt a tightening in my chest watching, not her, but him, smiling in anticipation as his soon-to-be wife glided towards him.
I cried.
Then I sobbed.
I was doing alright, really, until I made the mistake of looking at Jonathan in the middle of the ceremony. He was looking right back at me, smiling like a loon as he mouthed "2 months".
I cried like it was going out of style.
The ceremony over, the guests then proceeded to drink far to much wine in the sweltering sun, an activity I gamely participated in, until falling asleep at the embarssing hour of 9 pm.
The whole day sharply threw into focus the reality of my own fast approaching nuptials. I am becoming increasingly nervous and excited in turns.
After this wedding, though, my thoughts have turned to fervent prayers that I don't have panda eyes in every picture, and that I am able to stay up later than 9 pm. I am doubtful of either prayer being answered.
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