Dress Rehearsal

First allow me to clarify: Dress Rehearsal is NOT Rehearsal Dinner, the get-together that celebrates all systems go for the wedding day to follow. It’s Dress Rehearsal. That is, going through the motions well before the Big Day. Motions in which the engagee ( accent on the last syllable,long double - e)  will don her dress, walk in it (as in down the aisle) bend in it (as in crouching down low enough  to  hug toddlers of full- grown cousins) , and , after a hearty dinner, dance the night away in it as a married lady. That’s a high order for a single garment  – any garment – on a single night -- not to mention a reconstructed full length wedding gown(with train) that has been altered to fit like a glove.

Dress Rehearsal discoveries:

·    That the bride must put  the gown on over her head, not step into it, because the slip that poufs out the A-line of the gown cannot be tucked down into the dress’s skirt without stressing the seams of its  lower half . Good to know. We don’t want stressed seams (or stressed bride or stressed MOTB) the day of the wedding.

·    That the hooks on the bodice of the gown will stretch to the farthest row of eyes on the built-in corset as long as the bride sucks in her  breath as deeply as  possible  Do not underestimate the extent to which a bride will inhale to  zip the snug bodice of a fitted gown. I understand there is no need to worry unless – after all hooks are eyed – a bride-to-be’s complexion matches the latest craze of wedding party gray. Fortunately, Em retained her rosy glow throughout the Dress Rehearsal.  

·   That there is one concern. The threaded  loop designed to hook the lower half of the gown to the lowest button of the bodice's back, thus  lifting the gown’s train high enough to let  the bride dance the night away, that loop doesn’t look as if it can stand up to  the job through ceremonial pomp and celebratory circumstances on the dance floor.  

Time to get out the sewing box – which is what Dress Rehearsal is all about.

Welcome to Wedding Central

I have to admit Em's wedding  - less than three weeks away - is too close for the comfort of my being able to put off this or wait till later for that. We're beyond prioritizing. It's do-it-all-now time: the final flower decisions, the DJ song list, the hotel and party count, readings, guest bags.
And that's just this weekend. The storm before the calm - I hope.  I'll  gladly face a frenzy a few weeks before the wedding for a smooth run on October 8.

My tiny house seems to be getting smaller and smaller now that it's Wedding Central. Gowns - the bride's and mine - hang, out of the closet, to avoid wrinkling. Gift boxes are stacked here, cartons of goodies for the candy bar show up there. Baskets are being amassed for the sweets. There's 300 feet of packaged string lights piled on the piano bench. 

Good thing I haven't played the piano in a while. Maybe I'll get it tuned after the wedding.

After the wedding. Now there's a thought that hasn't crossed my mind in a long time. There's got to be a morning after the wedding, right? A quiet break of day when bride and groom are off to Vermont for a  long weekend. When the to-do lists are all crossed out and the happy hello hugs and kisses have been replaced by  bittersweet goodbyes.

When the Mommy of the Bride becomes the Mommy-in-law.

Oh my!

Better dig out that piano tuner's phone number!              

Thank You Kenny Chesney

Where was I?

Oh yes, Emily's bridal shower.

A shower  that Hurricane Irene almost crashed. We missed her rude entrance by a single weekend.

 But there is more to that lucky miss than meets the eye - of the hurricane or mine.

Em’s shower was originally planned for the day Irene would eventually crash through Connecticut . But that soiree was moved up a week because two bridal party members had tickets to see Kenny Chesney in Boston on Sunday, August 28. They couldn’t be two places at once. So we switched the date of the shower.

My English teaching colleagues and I call that situational irony.

We Wedding Planners call it Miraculous.

A fortuitous twist of fate of which Jimmy Fallon might write:  Thank you Kenny Chesney for being the reason behind having to reschedule Em’s bridal shower which in the end inconvenienced her family and friends much less than if your concert  had not inconvenienced them in the first place.