Don’t hurt the baby…
Most of you know I spent our first three years of marriage working at a resort off the coast of Georgia. I spent a year as a secretary learning as much as possible about how the hotel worked and how to plan various types of events. Then I moved up as a Catering Assistant. Catering planned all the weddings, social events and family functions at the resort. Having just planned my own wedding, I was completely in love with my job. At first. My schedule was Tuesday through Saturday which I generally enjoyed. It’s really nice to have a day off during the work week. Errands are easier to run and chores were easier to do without Chris around (oh yeah, I so inherited my mother’s OCD cleaning gene which Chris both loves and hates depending on how in the “zone” I am).
However, the wonderment and joy I felt in planning my own wedding quickly faded away when I started planning other people’s weddings. Most brides wanted and got the same basic event. They just didn’t realize it. Really, no matter how unique you think your wedding is, its not. Some where some one has already done it.
The differences are in the small details. Martha Stewart Bridal is great at giving bride’s wonderful ideas on how to make their wedding special. Like taking a wine bottle, green of course, and tying handwritten notes or table names on them. For instance, if you were having a wedding on the coast, you might name each of your tables after one of the islands in the area or you might name them something beach related. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, you’ll be dining at table “Sand Dune” or Mr. and Mrs. Michaels, you’ll be dining at table “Sapelo” tonight. You get the point. So who do you think spent 10 hours scrubbing labels off green wine bottles? Yep, that’s me.
I hate Martha Stewart.
Anyway, my time there was certainly educational and really, wonderful. Sometimes on a Friday night, my boss and I would sit out on the yacht, drink a Diet Coke and silently watch the sun set. Amazing.
Most of you know I spent our first three years of marriage working at a resort off the coast of Georgia. I spent a year as a secretary learning as much as possible about how the hotel worked and how to plan various types of events. Then I moved up as a Catering Assistant. Catering planned all the weddings, social events and family functions at the resort. Having just planned my own wedding, I was completely in love with my job. At first. My schedule was Tuesday through Saturday which I generally enjoyed. It’s really nice to have a day off during the work week. Errands are easier to run and chores were easier to do without Chris around (oh yeah, I so inherited my mother’s OCD cleaning gene which Chris both loves and hates depending on how in the “zone” I am).
However, the wonderment and joy I felt in planning my own wedding quickly faded away when I started planning other people’s weddings. Most brides wanted and got the same basic event. They just didn’t realize it. Really, no matter how unique you think your wedding is, its not. Some where some one has already done it.
The differences are in the small details. Martha Stewart Bridal is great at giving bride’s wonderful ideas on how to make their wedding special. Like taking a wine bottle, green of course, and tying handwritten notes or table names on them. For instance, if you were having a wedding on the coast, you might name each of your tables after one of the islands in the area or you might name them something beach related. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, you’ll be dining at table “Sand Dune” or Mr. and Mrs. Michaels, you’ll be dining at table “Sapelo” tonight. You get the point. So who do you think spent 10 hours scrubbing labels off green wine bottles? Yep, that’s me.
I hate Martha Stewart.
Anyway, my time there was certainly educational and really, wonderful. Sometimes on a Friday night, my boss and I would sit out on the yacht, drink a Diet Coke and silently watch the sun set. Amazing.
And so here the story begins. One spring day, my boss got a call from a frantic mother who was desperate to find a place to have her daughter’s wedding. In six weeks. Strangely enough, we’d just had a cancellation for that date the day before (yes, people do cancel weddings) so she booked the date and we started planning. The mother and daughter headed our way the next weekend. “Ellie May” and her equally charming mother showed up exactly 45 minutes late claiming traffic was horrible. Yeah, those 25,000 people in this county must have all been on the roads at the same moment. Ellie May was beautiful but bless her heart, she was a taco short of a fiesta platter.
It was a small wedding so the planning took less than our normal four hours. And lest you think that’s a long time, that’s all the time it took to plan a wedding. Period. Because we did the food, beverage, flowers, photography and the wedding ceremony itself, we could do everything but find you a dress and order invitations in those 4 hours. Not a bad deal. Anyway, this one was like 30 people or so which meant it didn’t take long at all.
Six weeks later, Ellie May showed back up and the entire Clampett clan came along. Oh my goodness. I have no words to describe them. Momma Clampett must have been on sedatives for our first meeting because the woman who showed up was completely wacko. Granny Clampett was more like it! You could literally hear her yelling in her lovely think red neck accent from one side of the resort to the other. Yikes.
But they were there and we had a wedding to put on. Part of my job was keeping the bride happy. Seriously, have you guys ever attempted that? It’s nearly impossible. Very few brides are laid back and calm on their wedding day. I got them water, snacks, needle and thread, glue for lost beads from their hair piece, irons for wrinkled bridesmaids dresses, aspirin and quite frequently, I was the one who would fix their bustles.
Well, Ellie May had a corset on underneath her dress. Pretty common and I was used to fixing those. Only I normally did them before they put their dress on. Momma Clampet didn’t think the corset was tight enough once the dress was on and instead of taking the dress off, suggested I just dive underneath to tighten things up a bit. And I did. With a smile on my face.
As I’m using all my might to get that darn thing as tight as possible while fervently attempting to keep my face out of her rear end, Ellie May yells,
“Not too tight! We don’t want to hurt the baby!”
And, I’m done here.
I tied the corset off and crawled out from underneath that dress. Thankfully, Momma Clampett was pleased with the tighter look and we were able to move on with the wedding. The group was loud and as the Clametts drank more and more, the volume rose to unheard of levels in our 75 year old refined, elegant hotel. After the wedding, we loaded up Momma Clamett’s SUV and sent the entire clam merrily on their way.
And then we laughed ourselves silly.
I am cracking up! Love it! My sister in law also did a destination wedding - to Panama City Beach no less! We took a refined family and went to the land of the rednecks! She is the artsy one in the family! At least that is what we all keep telling ourselves! It was a hoot - we even had a snake in attendance during the photos in the sweltering heat on the beach in May! Her brother was loving her in a wool tux - let me tell you!
ReplyDelete