Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Mother of the Bride

The perfect wedding present

For the mother of the bride, there is no gift so great as the caring kindness of friends.

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published December 14, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT Lennie Bennett, left, entered a whole new world when daughter Sarah said those magic words: "I'm engaged." Previous Mother of the Bride columns [Times photo: Bob Croslin]

Days before my departure to France for my daughter's wedding, I am surrounded by about 600 yards of ribbon, making little tassels for the programs.

It's a good moment to acknowledge my obsessiveness about details, but a better one for bearing witness to my friends. Because, unlike past moments in my life when I have taken on some manic project, I am not doing it alone. Also engulfed in ribbon and tassels are three of my best friends, who did not ask if they could come over on a Sunday morning but announced they would be here at 11 a.m. and I had better have tassels for them to wrap.

I, who have a hard time ever asking for help, was moved beyond words.

They aren't the only ones who have rallied, unbidden. When I was having an impossible time finding a mother-of-the-bride dress and considered having one made, one of my dearest friends brought over, as possible inspiration, an exquisite designer cocktail dress she had worn 50 years ago. I fell in love with its vintage charm, so she gave it to me.

I was afraid of taking it to an alterations person because of its fragility so another great friend, who knows couture inside and out, sewed the little nips and tucks needed to make it a perfect fit. This same friend came back over and spent several hours doing a genius job of packing Sarah's wedding dress and veil into a small carry-on bag - I'm not risking its loss in transit - to minimize wrinkles.

Needs great and small

There are the friends who have given parties for Sarah and Hilt. The one who will stay at my house while I'm gone, caring for my animals. The one who is picking up the cake knife at the jewelers after it's engraved and shipping it to France since I won't be here to take care of that detail - and also is on standby to ship anything else I may forget. The one who drove all over the county to find enough ribbon for those blasted tassels. The four friends who have offered me their fur coats so I won't freeze to death in blustery Normandy. The friend who frequently travels to Paris and arranged my accommodations at his favorite hotel, calling the manager to insist I be well cared for. The friend who assembled a beautiful travel bag with toiletries and candles.

And - this is a big deal - the friends who are going to France, leaving their families the weekend before Christmas to be with me.

That's a partial list of the loving kindnesses and sincere offers of assistance I have received over the last few months. I'm not going to embarrass them by naming names, but my friends know who they are.

I write this not only to acknowledge these particular generosities but to pass along to other over-functioning, independent types what I have learned from my friends. I'm good at giving assistance but not at all good about receiving it. There has always been a whiff of martyrdom about my proud refusals and stoic self-reliance. It's a form of control, I have come to realize, a way of making sure the scales of indebtedness are always tipped slightly in my favor.

Friendship has no debtors and those who know me best simply wave aside my protestations, forgive my stupidity and go about being my friends. I love them for that. They have taught me how to say thank you with the same simple affection as the acts that prompt it.

Most of all, I love my best friends for their willingness to be blunt, when need be, about choices I make. I'm thinking of a particular friend who rarely gives advice and is always loyal and supportive no matter what I do.

Except for one time.

A wise friend, indeed

Two years ago, we were having one of our monthly dinners, those wonderful, intimate times when we let our hair down, knowing we can say anything about anything and it will never be repeated.

Sarah had called earlier, breathless with excitement. A young man, several years her senior whom she knew casually, had invited her to a house party in the foreign country where he lived. Could she go?

"Absolutely not," I had said. "I'm sure he's very nice but I have never met him, you hardly know him and you'll be in a foreign country."

She was crestfallen but bowed to my higher wisdom.

As I recounted all this to my friend, I heard my voice swell with the righteousness of my decision. She cut me off midsentence, saying, "Let her go."

I looked at her, silent.

"Let her go," my friend, who knows and loves Sarah, said again.

I swallowed hard.

"Well, then," I said, "I will."

In a few days, Sarah will marry that young man. Hilt's mother, Scarlett, another friend, deserves credit for that trip. She had gotten to know Sarah and had engineered the invitation despite the skepticism of her son, who barely remembered Sarah from school.

Those who believe in fate or destiny will say Sarah and Hilt would have connected eventually. Maybe so. All I know is they connected when they did because of my friend. And everything that has been done concerning the wedding could probably have been done without help from outside our families. But how much fuller, how much more fun, the experience has been as a shared one.

I'm not a wealthy person but I go to France rich - stuffed, really - with the wisdom and caring of friends who have gently nudged me in that direction. I wish for anyone reading this the kind of friends I have and the grace to appreciate them.

Many can't attend the wedding. Still, every one of them will be there in my heart. And for that I say again, to my friends, thank you.

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

Editor's note

About this series

This is one 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 this weekend in France. 

[Last modified December 13, 2006, 18:17:18]