Father of the Bride Archives

Hil spied Weddings for Dummies on my desk in my home office. I've been looking for that, she said, and took it away. Whatever. This is my primary reference. I'll figure a way to get it back when she's not looking.

This reminds me of when Hilary was a toddler and used to hide her shoes so my wife couldn't send her to pre-school.

Happy birthday to me. I'm 54. It's the new 34. If you're my age, you realize that you don't feel as old as you look to people. One of the great insights I have now is that when I see someone who is old, I realize that they probably are still having the same thoughts they had when they were 18. We just pretend to be adults. We never stop being dumb guys. That could explain a lot.

I watched a bridezilla show the other night and was stunned at how mean some brides can be to everyone around them. When did being a bride give some young women a license to be horrid? (Not Hilary.  She is very well-behaved.)

I am still working on a full account of the florist meeting, which I plan to post tomorrow after I get some other stuff done.

I went with Hilary and Travis to visit with the florist last night. I thought the caterer discussion was complicated, but at least I had a pretty close relationship with food so I could catch every other word.  Last night I had to keep asking for, as they say at the United Nations, simultaneous interpretation. It's 2 a.m. and I can't go into all the details. I'll go into more of this later today or tomorrow when things slow down. Did you know that hydrangeas are tempermental?  Yeah, me neither. 

I'm getting tips from all over. A new show called Wedding SOS is coming on Thursdays at 9 p.m. to the Fine Living TV network. Here's what the press release said:

"The series following couples whose dream wedding threatens to become a nightmare, with feuding families, runaway brides, flakey florists, no-show officiates and missing cakes! Answering their cry for help is wedding expert, Jane Dayus Hinch. Even though it’s last minute, she puts the pieces back together, then it’s up to the couples, their friends and families to put her plan into action to assure a memorable day. This drama-filled roller coaster goes behind-the-scenes on this most important day as couples overcome obstacles galore and turn a nightmare into wedding bliss."

Somebody in New York gets paid a lot more than me to write this stuff. The first episode is called "Brooklyn Bride" and, apparently, the bride is getting cold feet and the groom is losing his temper. "....Will a crazy mother, a family feud, a reluctant bride and a clueless groom prove to be too much for Jane?" So reads the plot summary.

Fine Living is on channel 151 on Time Warner. Wedding SOS is going up against Fat Pets on Animal Planet in that time slot -- the trainer is working out three pudgy mutts -- so I don't know, I may have to Tivo it.

Or it may be spelled Marcia. I didn't catch her last name.

She left me a voice message and no phone number, which is too bad, because I wanted to chat with her. She told me that she came here in 1982 from Atlanta (pronounced Et-lana). She and her husband got married at noon so they wouldn't miss the Georgia Tech-Auburn kickoff at 2, which is a perfectly good reason to have a wedding at that time because of the traffic around old Grant Field.

It was a small wedding at home. Her hubby wanted to have, she said, a beer keg in the backyard and Japanese lanterns, but cooler heads prevailed, namely his mom, because it was at mom's home. It was, said Marsha, a "lovely little wedding." Which I took to mean there wasn't a lot of fuss, because she said "We were just as legally married as if everybody had been hysterical for six months."

Marsha, I wanted to say, you write this blog because you got better material.

"I don't know what's happened to weddings," she said on my voice mail. "It's a big business."

Yep. "All I can say," she said, finally, "is good luck and keep us informed."

We picked up Hilary at the airport tonight, returning from her visit with the maid of honor.  We took her fiance with us, and that gave me time to spend some quality time with Travis as we sat in Baggage Claim waiting for the 7:54 US Airways flight, which was only about 40 minutes late, which is practically on time.

At one point, a woman passed us pushing a stroller with a squawling baby.  That, I pointed out to Travis, is what all this wedding stuff will lead to.  I am helpful that way.

I apologize for being tardy at posting. I had to fly up to New York City yesterday (Tuesday) for a journalism conference and American Airlines decided to keep me at Gate C6 at LaGuardia Wednesday night until the aviation congestion over the Northeast subsided. Fortunately, I was able to engage in a conversation with a couple of Canadians who were mocking the weak U.S. dollar, eh?

Interestingly enough, my daughter-the-bride-to-be was flying up Wednesday evening to LaGuardia to spend a few days with her maid of honor and a bunch of other friends who flew up with her. The maid of honor, Mallory, is spending a semester in NYC. (I said: So this is like fall break at UNC? And Hil says, uh, no, but I'm only missing one class. So this was evidently Senior Skip Week). So I was literally boarding my flight as my daughter was deplaning and headed for baggage claim. We were on opposite sides of the terminal, so we didn't get to see each other. Anyway, here's a pic below. Mallory, a retired Clayton High School cheerleader, current N.C. State student and -- I'm pretty sure -- a future high-powered CEO of a major commercial real estate conglomerate -- is on the left, Hilary on the right.

Hilary and her posse spent parts of the day, I take it from a brief chat today, inspecting Coach knockoffs being vended by sketchy characters working out of vans. Clayton meets the Big Apple. They also tried to get into the Letterman show, but didn't win the random drawing they do for audience members.

I skimmed this picture off my daughter's Facebook page because you can't, don't you know, go anywhere without documenting it on the Face. By the by, even I have a Facebook page, which tells you how high over the shark it has jumped. It is so last spring.

I noticed my wife and daughter staring at my daughter's laptop in the kitchen the other night. They were listening to various selections of music for the wedding. Now, clearly, there are some boundaries in the choice of music. For example, you don't want "Who Let the Dogs Out?" as the bridesmaids are coming down the aisle. (God, I love that joke.) Canon in D is more appropriate for the processional. Although, according to this site, Shania Twain is popular. How about Etta James for the recessional (At Last)?

I never heard about Butterfly Kisses, a daddy-daughter dance staple, until a few days ago. And, what, Barry White for the garter toss? I'll keep you posted on the upcoming play list.

George Bush and I have something in common aside from both being sons of Republican politicians (his dad's presidency, my dad's service as an alderman in suburban Boston.) President Bush's Jenna is getting married, of course, and to a Wake Forest alum. Aside from that news in August, there have been absolutely no details as to when the wedding will be held or where it will be held (the betting seems to be against a White House ceremony). I have found this web site on White House weddings.

For some trivia, I covered former Sen. Chuck Robb as a journalist during his early political years in Virginia when he was lieutenant governor and then governor, and thus had the occasion to be at the same pig picking at a campaign stop when he was accompanied by his wife, the former Lynda Bird Johnson. Lynda Bird, who didn't seem crazy about the campaign trail when I saw her in the late '70s in Southwest Virginia, was married at the White House during her father's presidency. The wedding was 40 years ago this December, if you can believe that, and they served crabmeat bouchees and country ham with biscuits, according to the above-referenced web site, where you can see a picture of the bride and groom lo those many years ago. He was in full Marine dress and preparing to ship off to Vietnam.

Last night, my daughter handed me my "save the date" magnets for the folks I can invite from work. The challenge of a wedding is that you can't simply invite everyone you know.  The guest list is a very tricky part of this process. My daughter has a spreadsheet, and a cap on the number.  Watching her balance the list is like watching an NFL general manager prepare for draft day. The must-invites are pretty easy to figure out. It's when you get down to the final picks that it gets very difficult. 

But there is some wiggle room, I think.  

My textbook (Wedding Planning for Dummies) says this:  "Remember that the mysterious folks who calculate wedding statistics say that you can expect 10 to 20 percent of those invited not to attend. That's the national average, but it could be irrelevant to your situation, so don't bank on this to plan the size of your venue or to determine your budget's bottom line. You might be the lucky ones blessed with 100 percent attendance."  

Couple got married at a Wal-Mart in Ohio on Thursday. Evidently, this happens a bunch. Here's a story from 2002 about a similar wedding in Florida. And here's a story about how discounters like Target and Wal-Mart have become popular places for gowns and rings and other nuptial items, as the cost of a wedding has reached $27,852, on average, according to a study by Conde Nast Bridal Media.

Not that I'm suggesting anything.

This tip from my niece, Rebecca, who is a veterinarian in Arizona. She got married in June in upstate New York. Let me state for the record that it was a very nice wedding, and I didn't notice the glitch that she mentions herein:

"An important thing to make sure gets planned: exactly how the dinner/toasts should go, and WHO exactly will act as MC. Nate and I sat down at our head table and I kept waiting for something to happen, for someone to start toasts or start serving salad, and finally one of the caterers discreetly whispered to me that in fact, I was supposed to direct the activities from my dinner setting. oops."

If you know of any "oops" moments, post them here.

A bride-to-be just gave me a tip that I wanted to pass on.  She started out with a steno pad to keep track of all her wedding plans.  This evolved into a folder, and then a box, and then three boxes.  What she realized, now that her wedding is just around the corner, is that what she really needed from the start were boxes with hanging folders so she could keep a folder on each vendor.  A folder on each vendor? I asked.  Yep.  She's dealing with about two dozen vendors, from the DJ to the caterer to the Men's Warehouse to David's Bridal to the florist, etc. etc.

This bride also has all her guests on an Excel spreadsheeet, with a column for who has RSVP'd, whether they're showing up or not, what food preference they've expressed, etc. etc. so when it comes time to deliver the final guest list and all the required information, it's all manageable.

Isn't that every young girl's dream .... to grow up and manage her wedding with hanging files and a spreadsheet?   

The response to my first blog post included some helpful tips from guys who have been through this before, or are going through it, like me, for the first time. One fellow, who goes by the handle jaycopan, said that when one of his daughters was married five years ago, he was told about the three S's. Sit down, shell out and shut up. His youngest daughter is getting married in May. He is still following the advice.

Another fellow, hjzinn, counseled me not to worry so much about the prospect of my daughter winding up on the West Coast if her fiance gets a job in Silicon Valley. His daughter is graduating from ECU in May and is marrying a guy who is in the Navy in June, a week after my daughter's wedding. He's worrying where in the world his future son-in-law may be posted (and thus, his daughter), not where in the States. Good advice. I'll dial back the whining.