Emily Post's Nightmares and Attack of Bridezilla!

[featherynscale]

It's important to note in dealing with my family the following things:
1) We are all Southern.
2) There are two kinds of Southerners, those being:

• Southerners who spit; and
  
• Southerners who do not spit.
  

3) I am a product of an intermarriage between the spitting and the non-spitting tribe.
My sisters, however, are the offspring of a proud spitter and a spitter-pretending-to-be-a-nonspitter, which makes their approach to the world a little different.


So it was terribly important to my sister to strictly conform to all the rules of ettiquette surrounding the wedding. Unfortunately, it's difficult to conform to rules you don't know or understand. So the wedding went forward on a sunny summer afternoon with all the female attendants and various mothers and stepmothers of the bride in ankle-length dresses, which were, in the case of the attendants, deep red, with the maid of honor in deep blue. This was, of course, to match the groom's vest and bow tie, which were patterned after the Texas state flag, his family being from Houston. At no point did he wear a cowboy hat with his tuxedo, because "that's not proper", but he was wearing cowboy boots.

Seating rules were so strictly enforced that I had to be seated three times, owing to some confusion about where to put a sister of the bride. Nobody knew any rules about seating a sister of the bride, since sisters of the bride are generally assumed to be in the wedding party. I finally resolved the situation by holding up the exceedingly nifty digital camera and paraphernalia I'd been loaned, and declaring myself to be attending in the capacity of photographer. I was, therefore, allowed to sit wherever I wanted, which was in the original place I had been sitting -- a spot from which I could get good pictures.

It was easy to usurp the photographer role, since the gentleman hired to perform this duty did not deign to appear at the ceremony at all. All sorts of people were pressed into service with digitals, and a friend of the family who happens to be a professional photographer was called at the last minute to come and take some formal shots after the ceremony on a for-real film camera.

This prompted the Eruption of Bridezilla, who had been present all day, but in her unevolved form. My sister has never been very patient, and has also never developed any really healthy or even polite response to stress. All walked in fear of her, that day. I wanted to call kittenpants after the ceremony to assure her that any small offenses inflicted on my person by her in the process of planning and performing her wedding were minor and long-ago forgiven, because, dear gods, there are ranges of possible awfulness unknown by mortal man.

And lo, the hits just keep on coming. The pastor performing the service had never done a wedding before (or at least, that is what I have decided to charitably assume), and stumbled, fumbled and stuttered his way through the rite, leaving out about half of the order of service. The whole ceremony ended up taking about seven minutes. During that seven minutes, however, he managed to offend me twice, once by asserting that we were all there to proclaim the glory of Jesus Christ, and once by asserting that the natural state of humanity is marriage. But I suppose that ministers outside the UUA don't feel any need to think about whether or not all the people in their congregations will have different beliefs or opinions on things, so I probably should have expected that sort of thing. He also looked at me funny when I did not bow my head to pray, but didn't say anything about it after, so some marks there.

The reception proceeded much more smoothly. The nice thing about attending a wedding unaccompanied is that no-one really expects you to dance. This doesn't keep them from asking, as the other thing about attending a wedding unaccompanied is that it usually means you're fair game. I declined several invitations to two-step. As it happens, the only dance step I know is the Lindy Hop, and while I am told that this is similar to the two-step, my store of personal charity and goodwill had run out by this point and I was in no mood to expand my dancing skill set.

Next Up: Alarming Events and Stunning Reversals of Things We Knew To Be True.

Comments

Non-spitter, here.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

Ankle-length dresses before 5:00 p.m.? *tsk*

Re: Non-spitter, here.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Several of the various matronly persons objected vehemently, but were roundly ignored. They were happy to find that I knew the rule, which meant that they could complain to someone who didn't look at them blankly about it.

Re: Non-spitter, here.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

Then you obviously didn't have on black shoes either. Good girl. Now, we can move on the to desecration of a national flag.