Wedding Dreams

About two years ago, my daughter has discovered “The Wedding Album.”

I loved looking through it with her and talking about what she was seeing for the first time. She had all sorts of comments and questions when we were going through it.

“Oh Mom, I love your dress. It’s soooo long and pretty and you look so beautiful!” (Love that one!)

“Oh, there’s Aunt Gina and Uncle Ron. Where are my cousins?” (They were still twinkles in their parents’ eyes.)

“Grandma and Grandpa are so dressed up.” (This saying went for both sets of grandparents.)

“Aunt Lynnette had long hair!”

“Uncle Alan had hair?”

“Where are the pictures of Zachary and Ethan?” (They weren’t born yet either.)

“Who are all these people?”

“You had chocolate cake?! I want to have that at my wedding too!” (Chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting, thank you very much! Simply devine...)

"You had Grandpa's cheesecake at your wedding? You are so lucky!"

“Oh yuck. You’re kissing again.”

And my favorite:

“When I get married, I want to wear your dress!”

We still pull the album out every so often. I reminisce to her and talk about details long forgotten, like how our baker pulled out three weeks before our wedding and our flower shop told us two weeks before the event that they were going on vacation. (Yeah, we scrambled to find both, but it all worked to our advantage. We got better deals than we had before with the other vendors!) Or about how it rained on the wedding day, but by night, it turned into a beautiful summer evening. Or about how I was great during the ceremony, but how I cried during the vows and everyone else told me that they were doing great until they heard me and then they cried and the whole thing probably looked more like a funeral rather than a wedding to an outsider, except for the dresses and candles.

Or when they asked me how I felt immediately after the ceremony, they caught me on tape saying, “I can’t believe he married me!”

You know stuff like that.

We’ve pulled out the dress to get a look at the “real thing.” (Somewhere in the background Pachelbel’s Cannon in D Major begins to play and the dress radiates a soft glow and my heart is filled with abundant joy…) My daughter looks at it with reverence, as a sacred item to be cherished and eventually worn on her special day.

That is the dream that I really want to have happen, except the way she is growing, it may only be a dream in my head. (Music comes to a screeching halt)

Maybe she can find a use for it so that it is still in the picture on her wedding day...Maybe as a handkerchief or a pretty table cloth instead…

She'll get to decide and do with it what she wants for her special day, if she so desires. All that I care about for now is that she still wants to be like her Mom on her special day.