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Mother of the Bride

An invitation to change

It's best not to be married to one's grand plans for a daughter's wedding.

By Lennie Bennett
Published November 7, 2006

This is another in a series of occasional columns by St. Petersburg Times art critic Lennie Bennett chronicling her adventures as mother of the bride. Her daughter, Sarah, will marry Oscar Hilt Tatum IV on Dec. 17.

Late-night phone calls are never about how much dried oregano to put in spaghetti sauce or when to add fabric softener to the wash cycle. Late-night calls always have the potential for Major Bad News.

"Mom," comes Sarah's voice a thousand miles away.

I bleat some anxious noises through my sleep.

After assuring me she is fine, everything is fine, she says, "We're moving the wedding."

I sit up.

Moving the wedding?

Don't I have 350 wedding invitations waiting to be mailed, stating clearly in a beautiful script called Rook, by the way the wedding is going to be in St. Petersburg, Florida?

"What exactly does 'moving the wedding' mean," I say.

"It means we're not having the wedding there," Sarah says.

Then the connection goes dead.

I can only surmise that my astonishment is being registered somewhere on the astral plane, causing international phone connections to go as haywire as my brain at that moment.

The phone rings again.

Instead of Sarah's voice, I hear a series of clicks, then silence.

The phone rings again.

Another series of infuriating clicks.

It's okay because I'm speechless.

I have time to reflect on other relocations.

The Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. The capital of Brazil moving from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia. More recently, during a thunderstorm, my dog, George, hauling a large chair from one side of the room to another. (You may not consider it a comparable event but his was a heroic effort and I have the mangled upholstery to prove it.)

Sarah and I finally make contact.

"Mom, we have decided to get married in France," she says rapidly before the phone can go dead again.

To ensure I am fully alert to Sarah's news, my cat, Goose, who has crawled under the sheets, sinks her claws in my foot.

"Yeow!" I shriek.

"I know," Sarah says. "Isn't it great?"

Long story short:

Yes, it's great.

She and her fiance had good reasons for the change. Among them, his grandparents live in a lovely chateau in Normandy, a family home, which they offered for the wedding. The charm of it, the uniqueness, had me at bon jour.

I admit, for about three hours, I had a little pity party. All the work I had done . . . all my great ideas . . . Quel tragic.

I called my friends, anticipating commiseration and high dudgeon.

"That's soooo romantic," they cooed. "Soooo fabulous."

They started packing mentally. They wanted to discuss French-appropriate wardrobes. Possible shopping trips to Paris.

I admit, so did I.

When my editors and I first talked about writing a Mother-of-the-Bride commentary, we agreed it would not be a how-to for wedding planning.

Still, someone in the supermarket or home improvement store will occasionally say, "I read your column and I'm taking notes."

"Don't," I want to say. "Don't."

There is no template, no blueprint for life, not even for its most important moments. Certainly not for a wedding. Advance preparations are necessary, but they can easily become obsessive. Stressful. Too controlled.

Sort of like the way I was becoming.

If I have any advice to give it's this: Pride and ego have to be subservient to the needs of the two most important people involved, the bride and groom . . . our children. No matter the conditions and terms of a wedding - a city hall, a rural pasture, a faraway destination - if they're happy, we're happy.

In my case, as new plans unfold, I'm beyond happy. I'm in a state of sustained excitement that I try to tone down so I don't wear myself out with it.

We have regrets, mostly about the friends and family who won't be able to join us for this more intimate ceremony.

But I have ditched the lists and all my preconceptions. Deposits for arrangements here have been graciously refunded. (Okay, I'm stuck with the invitations but big deal.) I'm going to France, to be with my daughter as she marries a wonderful young man in a 1,000-year-old chapel.

From such a distance, I can't help much with plans so I'm working on my lamentable French.

I have gotten as far as C'est si bon.

It's probably all I'll need.

Lennie Bennett can be reached at (727) 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 7, 2006, 07:05:53]