it started out with comments on a show and turned into an emotional ramble

One of my new favorite things is to watch “My Fair Wedding with David Tutera” with little Miss Caroline. She adores all things wedding, and sparkle, and fabulous and David Tutera is just the man for the job. She does seem confused when we skip through the commercials…she asks if it the same girl or a different girl. Every time. She also seems to think that the host is the groom. Okay. So maybe the show is too much for her to understand, but I cannot resist. Here is how it goes…I will sit on the couch and stretch my legs out onto the ottoman and she will sit on my lap and stretch her legs out on top of mine. Her little hairs get in my eyes and mouth and her little arms and legs wiggle and wriggle and it makes my heart melt.

We talk about the flowers and the makeup and the dresses and the cake. We talk about the things she wants at HER wedding. So far she has decided on a purple and pink cake and statues that look like real people and lots of flowers and a little horse. Of course I do not plan to allow her to marry for about fifty years, but a girl can dream. 

After watching a few episodes of the wedding show Caroline asked to see pictures from “when you got married to Daddy.” I had to climb up in to the attic and dig through several boxes to find our wedding albums. It seems sad that they were packed away…seven and a half years ago I never would have imagined that those albums that my parents paid so much for would have anything less than a place of prominence in our house. Like on a coffee table (which we do not have) or on a shelf with a spotlight or something other than a box in the attic. 

I admit that after seeing a professional wedding planner with an unlimited budget create a dream wedding I started to not love certain things about our wedding. I started to think that my dress was too short, my makeup too ordinary, the flowers too horrible (that WAS true…the flowers WERE horrible and I got a partial refund from the florist after the wedding), that the bridesmaids should have all had the same dress, that the reception venue should have been fancier. But you know what? The more I think about it, I would not change anything. All the decisions the mister and I made for our wedding were perfect for us. We are not fancy folks. We did not have an unlimited budget. We wanted our friends and our families to be comfortable and have fun. And all of that happened. We had a choir, we served brunch foods at the reception, we gave out t shirts. It was our special day and I will treasure those memories forever. Forever ever. 

Whatever Caroline decides to have or not have at her wedding will be perfect. I will support her choices even if I disagree with them…even if fifty years from now she still wants to have a purple cake and a little horse. She and I will keep watching wedding shows and talking about “girl things” and I will love her so much it hurts. And I will save pennies (and other coins and actual dollars) to give her the wedding that is perfect for her. I doubt David Tutera will be involved in the planning, but it will still be fabulous…in fifty years.