Her BFF snce the age of four threw her a bachelorette party, which was just going out to dinner at Macaroni Grill, then back to Corri's house for games, thanks to Seth's girlfriend Elaine. One of them was a "how well do you know Jill" game, which surprisingly, I won, with three points. I mean, who knew that Jill would most like to kiss Liam Neeson before she got marred? At least she has good taste.
Afterward, she and Corri went to the garage to get the tree stump her dad had carved for Jill's wedding cake stand. I pulled the car around, and my eyes laid on these beautiful young women, and I was suddenly carried back to when they were about ten. It was a flash that nearly got me, and I had to catch myself. Jill hates it when "grown ups" cry. I told her that all bets were off for her wedding day.
At the rehearsal, Thomas dscovered that the more serious the situation requires him to be is in direct proportion to how badly he behaves. Walking Jill down the aisle, I looked over and Seth was dancing, waving his arms over his head -- which is pretty normal for him -- and Thomas was dancing wildlly in place. Oddly, the priest did not say anythng, but Jill and Michael were met with a firm "NO SKIPPING" admonishment when they left the church improperly. I'm sure that the rather Napoleonic priest was blaming the Protestant bride under their breath. I, of course, laughed and high fived her as she skipped by.
Saturday morning came along, and off she went for a bridesmaids' breakfast. I met her at the church later to get hair and makeup done. She had bought monogrammed robes for the girls as their gift, so in I walked to the girls giggling like little girls in their pink robes, in various states of hair intervention. Jill went and laid down on a table at one point while she waited. I'm pretty sure that in that couple of hours, I saw some part of each of the bridesmaids undergarments. Not sure how that happened, but yeah. Suddenly, it was time to get over to the church NOW -- as in, we were late getting Jill over there so that no one would see her -- so the flower girl grabbed one end of her dress and I grabbed the other, and we basically ran across the parking lot, straight to the basement room where she was to hide. A few minutes later, I had sweat dripping down everywhere, thinking that I was in the midst of a menopausal power surge, when the photographer realized that the heat was on full blast. I can't imagine how hot Jill was under all that tulle, but she looked beautiful.
Contrary to her earlier warnings, she did NOT throw up.
The ceremony went off without a hitch, though it contained an overly long homily in which the priest a) said "Jill and Michael" at least twenty times, as if he was reminding himself of who he was marrying, or filling in the blanks on his standard speech, and b) he seemed to have a fixation with talking about the marriage bed, and consummating the marriage, both of which were met with wide eyes by the bride. She rolled her eyes more than once. The sweetest moment for me was when they lit the unity candle, and the soloist was singing "You Are Mine." I looked over and saw that my Jillie, who never can seem to stop singing, was singing to Michael -- and he promptly joined in and sung to her. It was just a perfect display of Jill and Michael. Then I realized that the priest was singing too, and it was just kind of funny.
I didn't cry. Not even close. I was just so happy. Her brothers, however, both professed later that they had trouble holding on and both almost lost it. That was a real revelation to me, after watching those three grow up at each others' throats a fair portion of the time. Ah, it's nice to see things come full circle, and realize that these parts of your DNA turned out to be just. so. nice. And man, they clean up well too.
Maybe I'll remember to tell about the reception, but given my proclivity for forgetting to finish two part blog entries, I make no promises. So I will just leave you with this, which warms my heart more than I can say:
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