April wedding

I can't remember when I didn't love April in Texas, so when Darling Daughter told me her best friend was getting married in April, I was pretty sure the bride had made a pretty good choice.

Darling Daughter stepped right into the wedding arrangements, offering to help in any way she could with preparations and planning. The bride has two sisters and several aunts who were eager to pitch in, too, so when she put out the word that this was to be a "country church picnic" wedding at her family's lake house, the calicos and ginghams and Mason jars took center stage. When I got there, streamers of cotton "flags" were draped through the trees, the tables had been covered with bright "quilt top" cloths, and several rows of old-fashioned wooden folding chairs had been lined up in front of an arbor decorated with paper flowers.

About the time the wedding was set to start, the bride's younger sister rushed over to where her brother and sister-in-law were allowing me to cuddle their baby. Little Sister explained to brother that his job was to walk his wife and their baby down the aisle, after which she was to be seated on the front row (next to a shade tree where the stroller would be parked) and he would take his place nest to the arbor. Clearly, the slip of paper Little Sister had in her hand was about it for "dress rehearsal" for the event, and she looked a little frantic about whether the members of the wedding party were likely to arrive at the right place, much less the right time.

A few minutes later, the wedding guests were sort of herded off in the direction of the chairs and a guitarist started playing soft music I didn't recognize. The guitarist turned out to be a member of the groom's band, and the music could have been something he wrote. Whatever it was, it was definitely nontraditional and pleasant, and I was pretty much hooked on the kind of wedding this was turning out to be.

The first person down the aisle was probably one of the groom's brothers, with a woman on his arm I believe to have been his sister or aunt. (I'm horrible names on a good day, and this crowd was way too far over my head for me to keep track.) The woman had the bride's little dog in her arms.

Each member of the wedding party came down the aisle with an escort—but instead of "groomsmen" escorting "bridesmaids," in this case the wedding party served as ushers to members of the family who wouldn't be at the front of the ceremony. I wasn't paying enough attention to who was with whom when the groom's family came in, but I'm pretty sure either he or his son by a previous marriage escorted in his mother. And the son stood at the front, right next to dad.

The bride's brother escorted in his wife, then took his place on the bride's side of the stage. How cool for the brother to be the bride's attendant! Maybe I just haven't been to enough weddings lately, but I loved it. Her two sisters were her other attendants, one escorted by her significant other and the other ushering in their grandfather. The bride appeared on the arms of both parents.

As the procession unfolded, I loved what I saw: not only was this the sort of nontraditional wedding I'd have loved for my own event in the early 70s. My mothers and sisters were champs about pitching in to bring my wedding together, but this one also involved the whole family in being a part of this union in ways mine didn't. It reminded me a little of the only Catholic christening I've ever attended, where the priest made a point of telling the parents and godparents that the ceremony was not just a matter of making the baby a Catholic but also of reminding them of their responsibility to be sure the child was raised right. In fact, the preacher at this wedding had a similar message of family and friends being important to ensuring that the marriage formed that day had all the help they could give to be sure it endures. I liked that.

The photographer took far to long with the "requisite" pictures. I can think of maybe five or six that make sense to me: the "big" new family, the bride and groom with each other's families, and a posed shot or two of the bride and groom. But the hour or two this photographer spent on those  poses mostly kept the bride away from people who wanted to wish her well and be on their way; with all the "photographic overload" we have these days, I'd rather have the photographer roam around for an hour and capture candids that might ultimately have more meaning.

Once the photographer finished the list, the bride and groom were free to enjoy their evening, and enjoy they did. The "church picnic" had the requisite iced tea and lemonade, but it also had a couple of washtubs filled with iced-down soft drinks, a couple of kinds of wine, and several cases of beer. Except for the beautiful gown the bride wore, the wedding had not been "traditional" in very many ways, but after a washtub full of beer, it was certainly a celebration. As the sun went down, the music came up, and the laughter came up with it.

The bride confessed to me a time or two that the boning in her strapless gown was somewhat less than comfortable, but she shed her shoes and kept the gown on right up until the party died down sometime after 2:30 in the morning. That made perfectly good sense to me: she must have forked over a fortune for that dress, and it's a shame to wear it for only a couple of hours. She danced a couple of waltzes with her groom and one with her father, clearly relishing the sweep of the full gown as she twirled, and then she took as many opportunities as she could to turn and swirl and run in it, carefree as an eight-year-old.

A little after midnight, she was dancing on the lawn with a clutch of her friends from high school who had made it to the show, when she mistepped and fell. Once on the ground, she rolled into a somersault and came up laughing. Her groom—who had long since changed into jeans and a t-shirt—watched her play and observed drolly, "My bride is getting grass stains on her wedding gown. I love it."

I don't think the family and friends will have much of a challenge in helping this marriage last.