SO MANY TYPES OF WEDDING PARTIES

This week I had many different types of wedding parties. I had the sweet couples, the bratty child, the complaining couple, the bossy bride, the incredible lovely "princess" flower girl, and the really eager to marry couples.

How eager to marry you ask? One couple the bride had received her divorce degree 9 days ago. Another bride's decree was 8 days old. If you just got out of a bad marriage, shouldn't you at least let the decree's ink dry before jumping into another marriage?

I checked a license and found a typo (that the couple had put in). So I took it back to the clerk to be corrected. Before I could walk out to her desk, another clerk came up with the groom. He wanted to know why it was taking so long to do the ceremony. What was I doing that I wasn't taking them? It had been a whole 5 minutes since the license left the clerk's hand. She had told them it could be 15 minutes before they were called. I "sweetly" explained he had misspelled a word and the typo had to be corrected. Yes, the clerk should have caught it, but he and the bride had been asked to check everything too. When I did get all corrected, and we went upstairs he was all out of sorts like it was my fault. I killed him. Well, I killed him with Southern sweetness. You can drown in my syrupy voice.

I had a very bossy bride with a child from hell. The bride was bossing the groom and guests around. She was telling me how to run the ceremony, and I let her. It was her wedding. She was placing the groom here, her child was to be Best Man (he was two) so he was to stand there. On and On. Except the child was running up and down the room and then got on the pew and was walking and jumping on it. I told her the child had to sit, he could not walk on the pew, it was too dangerous. She kept saying, "Doug, Doug, sit down. Please sit down. Doug, Doug, Doug" . . . Doug just ignored her. I kicked into Super MOM mode crossed with Old Fashioned school teacher and said, "Doug, sit down now. And do not get up." He sat and did not move until the wedding was over. Super powers are great.

My favorite wedding maybe ever was on Monday. The bride had on a one shoulder white cocktail dress. The shoulder had white cabbage roses. She carried a pink rose bouquet. The groom wore a spiffy suit, white shirt and pink tie and had a pink rose boutonniere. Their daughter was around 4 years old and beautiful in a wholesome All American child way. Her blond hair hung in curls below her shoulders and there were varying shades of pink bows in her hair. She wore a long pink, full skirted, taffeta dress and carried a bouquet of varying shades of pink sweetheart roses. And on this little princess' feet, sparkly little girl high heels.

After the wedding lots of pictures were taken. I offered to take pictures of all of them. Dad picked up the child for one of the pictures. She was holding her bouquet too high and hiding her face. I said to her, " Katherine, drop the bouquet. " And she did. She just opened her hands and let it fall to the ground. We nearly died laughing.

As a past teacher, a mother, and one who volunteers with first graders, I should have remembered how literal children are.