K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple. Sure!)

Of course, Janet and Kate made the obligatory disclaimers that the wanted a simple wedding.  Of course, nobody believed them.  And besides, once the news got out, Kate’s parishioners got together to plan it.  They were looking at it as a political act as well as a chance to go more High Church than ever. 

As de facto mother of the brides (Kate’s parents are dead and she doesn’t have any children) my job was to supervise things, which consisted of saying, “Terrific.”  One of Kate’s parishioners is a wedding planner.  Once in a while I would say, “How much is it?”  and he would tell me not to worry about it; it was a present or he was getting a fabulous deal.

Naturally Cilla and Betsey would sit in for a bit and soon Cilla was saying everything was “fabulous.”   Pretty soon I was saying it too.  The reception was going to be in the parish hall, with spillover outside, parishioners were making the food, and there would be a DJ.  Kate knows so many musicians, she didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.  And as Janet said “You can’t dance to that folky women’s music stuff anyway.”  Kate said, nonsense;  she knew women whose groups did rock and punk and even rap.  Janet said she was sorry to miss that, but of course, you couldn’t step on any toes, even if they were in motorcycle boots. 

Major debates were:

Should we use Epiphany’s dishes and silver or get paper and plastic?  Which would be prettier? (Paper and plastic.)  Which was better the environment? (Who knows?  Think of the water and electricity to wash them.)  But paper and plastic won, because they were more convenient.  Kate said she could pay people to come in to do the dishes, but Janet said that someone would be sure to say something about exploiting the workers.  (I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t.)   Anyway, we didn’t know for sure which was better.

Color scheme:

Lavender, or course.  But should the bridesmaids, Betsey and Allison’s daughter Courtney, wear that or white?  Cilla, the flower girl would wear white with a lavender sash.  On our first shopping trip,  all we found was white.  Cilla said it would just like Princess Kate’s wedding.  Should the tuxedos for Ed, Josh, and Allison’s son Dylan have lavender ties and vests?  We decided on dark purple.

Cake topper:

Two brides, two women’s symbols, a heart with the equal sign in the middle?  Janet suggested two teddy bear brides, but Kate said that was too cutesy; how about two dinosaur or Godzilla brides?  We finally decided on a dog and cat bride.  As Tony, the wedding planner pointed out, it would make good conversation talking about who was the dog and who was the cat.  (Dear Reader:  What do you think?  Click on “No comment.”)

I’m sure there’ll be more to come.