It Has Been Published

It's done, published . . . The ebook should be on Amazon by sometime tomorrow and available on BN sometime this coming Saturday. The paperback will follow in a week or two on Amazon. 

I feel as if I have been in labor for months. I just hope I do not suffer a postpartum depression.

Chapter 47, Because Martha Said So

A few paragraphs from Chapter 47, Because Martha Said So
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Thank goodness my bride-to-be was way past the Martha Stewart phase. While some of my friends lived by the motto WWMD (What Would Martha Do), I was more of the MWDH (Martha Would Die Here) ilk.

All of this reminds me of a wedding I went to years ago. Actually it was the rehearsal that was memorable. The wedding was at a country church way back in the sticks. Most folks had shoes on for the rehearsal; however, several of the groomsmen came in coveralls wearing no shirts underneath, but they all had teeth. Almost everyone was drinking one type of alcoholic beverage or another they had in their car. We were drinking libations legally bottled and unlike most of the group, ours were not being served from a mason jar or some vessel that formerly contained mayonnaise.

The mother of the bride was running around trying to round up all the wedding party who were strung out socializing everywhere from the back pew of the sanctuary to the parking lot of the church. I’m not sure why she was so concerned, there was plenty of time because the wedding director was an hour late.

When the director finally arrived, she was a little confused. A double aisled church was a challenge for her. After dividing the attendants by two, she figured it out. Then she looked at the mother of the bride. "Now you will be seated last." With that she started to show the mother the pew she would be seated in.

The mother of the bride bristled, and in a loud voice stated, "I'll just let you know, I am the mother of the bride. And in case you do not know that is place of honor. I will not be seated last. I find that demeaning."

The director was speechless. "But that is traditional. It is an honor."

"Honor? To put the mother of the bride at the bottom? Last? Like the last teat on a pig?" Then she turned to her daughter. "Aren't you going to say something? You're going to let them treat your mama like this?"

"Mama, if she says that is proper, then I think we should listen to her."

"Great, now I don't get any respect from my own daughter, after all I've done for you."

I would have thought the mother and the daughter would have taken this discussion outside. But no, this 

"discussion" got ugly. Finally the daughter said "Mama, it's my wedding and you're ruining it, like I knew you would."

"Oh, sweetie, you know I'd never do that. I just don't want all the folks who are coming to think we are hicks and don't know how to have a wedding. I've seen Martha Stewart's show on weddings and she never had the mother seated last."

"Mama, did you see Martha Stewart tell the mother where to sit?"

. . . you can read the rest of this chapter soon when "The Mother of the Bride Should Never Wear Blue" is published

Chapter 25 A Wedding so Spectacular One Could Hardly Imagine

Work on the book continues, here is a bit of Chapter 25, A Wedding so Spectacular One Could Hardly Imagine
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 . . .This mother of the bride wanted the event to be a special and memorable occasion for all. Every time she saw something in a magazine, on television, or at another wedding, I would be given the task of researching whatever the dream item of the day was. This got interesting because sometimes I had a vague description from a television show, sometimes a picture from a magazine, and the worst, the phone number of another mother of the bride. . . .

. . . . My favorite were the miniature bottles of liqueur decorated with a ribbon embellished with the bride and groom's initials that I found most amusing given this was going to be a Southern Baptist wedding.

    The most elaborate proposal was that of the ornate personalized boxes that would be placed under every guest's seat in the church. At the end of the service as the bride and groom were being presented as "Mr. and Mrs." each guest would be instructed to reach under their seat, pick up the box, and open it, releasing a butterfly creating a "romantic scene of beautiful butterflies for the bride and groom as they walked down the aisle". 
   Now in order to create this phenomenon of butterflies, a chrysalis had to be placed in each of these boxes that was at the exact age to mature and come out of its cocoon at this precise time - like within a few minutes.When it came down to it, neither the chocolates nor the liqueurs nor the butterflies made the final cut. By that time all the attention was on the invitations and the list. Those were the traditional engraved invitations. After all this was a formal wedding. 

Chapter 58, No, No, Not the Blue One

A little bit of Chapter 58  "No, No, Not the Blue One!"

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Thank goodness for good friends and bridesmaids. The dress shop called me two days before I left for Edisto so I did not have enough time to pick up my dress. One of the bridesmaids was picking up my daughter's dress, which also had just had its final alterations, and volunteered to pick mine up as well.

    We were unpacking boxes of liquor, coolers of beer, Tiki torches and gallons of fuel, table cloths, and the other odds and ends we had brought for the rehearsal dinner. In all the commotion I had forgotten about my dress. My daughter reminded me that my dress was upstairs in one of the bedrooms.

    When I got a moment I went and got it out of the closet.

"You are going to try it on?" she asked.

"I guess so." I took it off of the hanger. "Damn this thing looks small."

    I slipped into it. Well let me correct that - I tried to slip into it. The dress was even smaller than 

before when I went to pick it up and the zipper ripped out. Needless to say I was not a happy camper.

    Luckily being prepared like a girl scout or the eternal pessimist, I had packed another dress just in case I needed a "back up". That was the good news.  The bad news was that I had worn the “back up” dress to the weddings of several of my daughter's bridesmaids. And of all things it was the dreaded mother of the bride blue color.

    I did not take this sitting down. I did not take it well. In fact the term my husband used later was "hissy fit". I was not happy. For four months I had worried about the details for this event and of all things I was going to show up in a frumpy blue dress that most of the guests had seen. So much for being stylish; the dress was not even comfortable.

    “Oh you better get your money back,” said a friend of mine who happened to be in the room.

My daughter added, “I’d ask for more than my 

money back. I’d make sure I got reimbursed for the dress and the alterations.”

  “No I want the shop keeper’s mobile number and home address. I am going for actual and punitive damages as well as pain and mental anguish.”

Cover Release

And, now, the cover for the book:

Chapter 5, The Bridal Party

A snippet from Chapter 5, "The Bridal Party"

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I got married in the days of the big traditional southern weddings. Since my husband and I were from the same area, we knew most of the people we invited would probably attend. As we started planning the wedding, I was not surprised to find that my husband was not one of these ’Oh, honey you just make that decision. Whatever you decide is fine with me’, types. Oh no, he was detailed oriented and wanted to participate, which I appreciated - to a point. OK when he told me the bridesmaids' dresses I selected looked like they were made out of ’shower curtain’ material I was ready for him to find another hobby.

Then we started discussing the wedding party. I came from a very small family - one brother and a few younger cousins. He was one of four children, two of whom were already married with children. He had lots of cousins, many of them he was close to. By the time he told me who he needed to have in the wedding including groomsmen and bridesmaids, out of 12 attendants, I was left with room for 2 cousins, 3 sorority sisters, and 1 friend. When it was all over, we had 12 groomsmen, 12 bridesmaids, a maid of honor, a best man, a ring bearer and a flower girl.

Chapter 31, Say Yes to the Dress

A few paragraphs from Chapter 31, Say Yes to the Dress
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I despise reality TV. But I was aware of a show called, ‘Say Yes to the Dress’. Just from the ads I saw, it involved a lethal combination of divas and their search for a weddings dress - talk about drama.

       I cannot decide which would be more annoying of two scenarios. First there was the episode following the southern girl with her mother in tow trying to make sure she chose some gown that involved a hoop skirt, cathedral train, and required a cadre of young girls to keep it perfectly aligned as she glided down the aisle like a float in the Tournament of Roses parade. 

        Then they featured the girl from Staten Island, whose voice would rip wallpaper clean off the wall, who stated right up front, she liked sexy and bling as she shook her long bleached tresses from her face. Spare me.

         My husband asked me if our daughter had even considered wearing my wedding dress. It is a good thing I didn't get my feelings hurt because both of my daughters made it very clear they did not plan to wear my wedding dress when they got married. In fact only their polite southern upbringing thinly veiled their disgust over the fashion of my day or lack thereof. 

       So my mother wore an elegant sleeveless satin gown with a fitted lace bodice over it (and her 18 inch waist) and my daughter planned to wear a slender white lace gown that fit her tall thin figure. Then there was me, who chose something more like a fairy tale. Don't think Cinderella, my gown was more akin to the dress Princess Fiona wore - after she kissed her Prince. 

        As life moved on I went with my daughter for the fitting of her wedding gown. The store or rather I should say boutique was in Charleston and specialized in upscale designer gowns and the owner took very good care of her customers. 

       The appointment ahead of us was running a little late, so I took that time to look through the racks of gowns. The styles had changed a lot since the days of my provincial gown. In fact thinking back on it,  comparatively speaking, my gown looked like something out of a bad opera before the fat lady sang. These gowns were breathtaking, well most were. Some were a little over the top 

(after all, one had to cater to the divas.) 

Chapter 15, Venues, Venues, Venues

Here are a few paragraphs from Chapter 15, "Venues, Venues, Venues" of the new book.
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              Given most brides were trying to find places a year in advance, when my daughter told me she wanted to get married in April - of that year - in the Low Country - on a specific Saturday, I panicked. Of course, she had a particular location. OK, let's be specific. Why not make this a blood sport?

             I could not help but think of many of the weddings I had attended over the years. One came to mind that was held at a fairly unique venue. A Yankee from New Jersey came south bought some land and decided it would make a beautiful wedding venue. To enhance its image he built a replica plantation house that could be rented out.

            So let me paint you the picture here - we had a Yankee from New Jersey who came and bought land in the deep south, he built a big white house with Corinthian columns and put porticoes around it, called it a plantation, and rented it out to us southerners for exorbitant rates - which some idiots paid. Talk about selling ice to the Eskimos.

       And, of course, as always, the Yankee was determined to civilize us "heathens" and bring culture to the backwoods of the rural south. Please define "culture". We were seated in white chairs on a wide expanse of green lawn overlooking the pond (all man-made to fit the antebellum theme) for the nuptials. Throughout the ceremony the preacher had to pause due to the loud revving of engines that could be heard coming from the nearby drag strip (some good 'ol boy flavor the Yankee didn't quite count on.)

        As the preacher announced the bride and groom and they started making their way up the aisle, a loud boom went off. Some true Old South flare? A friend sitting nearby nonchalantly said, "Oh, that's Trish."

           I looked at her. "What do you mean Trish? Knowing who she was referring to but not having a clue what Trish had to do with the near sonic boom we just heard.

          "That was Trish's cannon." I looked at her totally perplexed. "She has three cannons and she likes to shoot them at special occasions, like ball games, and the births of her grandchildren."

                   "And weddings," I added.

"Especially weddings," our friend said.

The venue may have been owned by a Yankee, but how much more southern can you get than a wedding in the shadow of a white house built for show, interrupted by the Saturday evening noises of the local drag strip and highlighted by the boom of a real cannon. Even an entrepreneuring Yankee couldn't come up with that much color.

Chapter 8, The Competitive Game of Gifts

The first few paragraphs of Chapter 8 -"The Competitive Game of Gifts"
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Visiting the home of the Mother of a Bride to see the gifts the couple had received was a tradition in the south when I got married.  In fact it was more of a social occasion. In some ways it was a competitive sport. There were two sides -offensive and defensive. Offensive was the Bride's Mother with the gifts on display somewhere between a dowry - the spoils of the game and a TV show prize bank. Defense was comprised of the individual guests and the gifts they sent. One was truly judged by their gift. And if you cared about such you better make sure you sent an appropriate gift, because the game was on.

          There was a hierarchy of gifts. A place setting in the Bride's formal china, a piece in her sterling silver pattern, or four (or more) pieces of stemware in her fine crystal were considered premium gifts. Depending on the competition in the above category, in close contention followed a place setting in the Bride's everyday china, a complete set of pots and pans (copper bottoms only), a linen table cloth and twelve matching napkins (white only), a pair of crystal candlesticks, a set of sheets, or an original piece of art. A casserole dish, a small appliance (such as an electric can opener or hand held mixer), single piece of everyday china, or place mats were placed on a separate table, displayed as if they were consolation gifts.

           All the above would easily be trumped by a piece of fine antique furniture, a Baccarat decanter,...

Chapter 9, The Wedding that Almost Wasn't

From Chapter 9: The Wedding That Almost Wasn't

(This is from the middle of this chapter) 

In the mean time, Michael, one of his [my husband's] groomsmen from Boston, was getting rip roaring drunk in the club bar with Jim, a childhood friend of my husband, another groomsman. The two had never met until that night and when you mix an Irish catholic from Boston with a good ol’ boy from the Low Country of South Carolina over dozens of shots of brown liquor, it isn't pretty. And, it got down right ugly when the subject turned to the war (as in our most recent unpleasantness). In fact it got so ugly that the bartender came into the ballroom to find my husband to seek a truce.

Finally, my husband found me, we danced a dance or two and visited with a few folks we had not spoken to yet. Then it was time to go. He drove me home and I thought everything was dandy. After all tomorrow was our wedding day. Well, that was until a year or two later when my husband revealed it almost wasn't. Apparently at the rehearsal party after several adult beverages and an hour or two separated from me, he announced to his friends that he had no plans to marry someone he could not even find at the rehearsal party.

So, after peace had once again been found between the North and the South, my husband's groomsman (and former college roommate) Michael sat him down in the bar and explained how calling the wedding off at that point was probably not such a good idea. Even in his drunken stupor, Michael was able to talk my husband into not abandoning me at the altar the next day. After mulling it over even more glasses of single malt scotch, Michael and my husband solved half the problems of the world and my husband decided that the wedding, would in fact, go on.

Chapter 33, I Never Got the Merit Badge

From Chapter  33 - "I Never Got the Merit Badge"

(This is the latter part of  Chapter 33 )

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       I never saw a merit badge on Wedding Planning when I was Girl Scout and my sash was filled with a plethora of badges ranging from First Aide to Camping to Forestry to Recycling. I was prepared for the gown, the invitations, the cake, and those matters. However, no one prepared me for the onslaught of issues that require copious quantities of drugs and alcohol to handle.  

       Linens - white or ivory? A runner? And, what color?Should it be satin or organza? What size stage does the band need? And, the dance floor?

      The venue needs another check. I have already paid them. A set-up fee? That wasn't in the contract. Oh, we can pay it or set-up the tables and chairs ourselves. That doesn't look like an option. And, the bakery wants $250 just to deliver the cake? I'm not sure my wedding dress cost that much. On second thought, isn't a wedding cake so over rated anyway?

     Do we want a golf cart to carry our guests from the polo field to the lawn? No, our guests can walk and enjoy the lovely grounds. Do we need one? No. What if  . . ? If something happens, we'll deal with it then. We've checked the guest list and no one is infirm. If someone does something stupid at the rehearsal dinner- they are on their own.

     “We” (the venue of the wedding and reception) did tell you that the street address on our website is not the correct address for GPS navigation, didn't we?” Oh, Joy! Since the plantation is two miles off the beaten path of the only main road in west Jesus, I guess they can wing it. The invitations have already gone out.

      Oh, and by the way, we did tell all the guests that they cannot get a taxi from the airport in Charleston to the island, the closest hotel is thirty miles from the venue, and to remember to bring mosquito repellent. Perhaps it was best not worry them about the alligators.  But, April would most likely be warm enough for them to be out and about.

      I know these were just the minor details that everyone deals with. But, I had enough trouble finding a dress. No one prepared me for golf carts, GPS coordinates, and runners.

Chapter 20, The Uber List

From Chapter  20 - "The Uber List"

(This is the latter part of  Chapter 20 )
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At one point, I had a separate list of names that had been pulled off the main list. This separate list included anyone on death's door, with a terminal disease, with marital problems, in the process of a divorce, or whose house was for sale. The Mother of the Bride was determined that the invitations would be addressed correctly. If parties were separated at the time the invitations were delivered, then they needed to be addressed accordingly. She would not have an invitation sent to someone who had already passed away. That would be most disrespectful to the family. And Lord help us if one was returned because it had been sent to someone's former address.  So for six months I kept up with the obituaries, the MLS, and the local gossip to ensure that list was up-to-date.

And, the names - they had to be complete and correct. She insisted on this to the point that I had a copy of the style manual put together by the corresponding social secretary at the White House which contained the formal way to address everyone from a Four Star General to a Potentate to a Maharajah - should we have one on the list.

I remember one prominent business man always used his middle initial "M" and never his middle name. The Mother of the Bride had me call his office to obtain his middle name so his invitation would be correctly addressed. His assistant told me, as I expected, just to use the initial, that was his preference.  The Mother of the Bride would have none of that and called him herself. After several minutes of polite but emphatic language on her part, the gentleman finally said,"What difference does it make? The invitation is coming to me. If I say 'M' is correct, then by God it's correct." She hung up in defeat.

"Have it his way. But it is not correct. You just cannot address a formal invitation without a full name."

Looking down the list, I cringed. There was the name of a doctor with an initial. I knew him and knew that the initial was not short for anything - it was just a "J". He did not even put a period after it. Amy Vanderbilt did not cover this one, nor did the White House. Before the Mother of the Bride made the call she commented, "You don't suppose he would consider changing it to 'John' would you? That certainly would make my life easier."