Rachel is the last of my three girls to take that walk down the isle. There are a lot of things swirling around in my mind, mostly the hope that she has chosen the right "One". It's not that she has had a hard time making good choices, we all do that. It's just that there is so much we, I didn't consider when I made my choice. Sorry, I'm jumping the gun here. Anyway, it is her choice and I will support her however I can.
The preparations are well, kind of sketchy. She has arranged for a spot in the park, the groom will only wear shorts and a Polo shirt. There will be a potluck and someone is bringing some chairs. I think she thought I'd be shocked when she told me that a woman would preside over the ceremony. Hey, what do I care about a person's gender?
With a few weeks to go, dare I say it? She's getting jittery. There, I've put it as pleasantly as I can. Invitations? Flowers? Food? Number of guests? Shoes? Maid of Honor? Best Man? RINGS?! FACEBOOK? Who ever heard of inviting people to your wedding via Facebook? Okay, she's young and that's where her friends hangout, so it makes sense...sort of.
When Rachel was younger she made me promise to save my wedding veil for her. Even though I have since divorced her father and I wanted to shred the thing, I saved it. In fact, I carried around from move to move to across the country just for her. Hey, when I make a promise I do my best to keep it. My word is my bond. Oops! I see I took a little bird walk there. Anyway, I dug the dingy, use-to-be-white thing out of a beat up cardboard box in the garage and went to work. The damn thing was about seven-feet long. Not at all what I ordered from L.S. Ayres back in 1975. It was suppose to be finger tip length. The pearl and lace cap was dated, yellowed, and crushed. I sighed, carried it to the dining room table and threw it on the pile of left over school related mess. There it sat for a least a week, staring at me, daring me to cut it up.
Finally, I relented and with seam ripped in hand began removing the long stitches that held it altogether. Next, into the kitchen sink to see if I could removed the dingy gray-yellow hue. Warm water and dish detergent worked wonders! The water turned a dusty gray and with several rinses water and tulle got lighter and brighter.
There were two seven feet layers of tulle; each one as wrinkled as an old elephant's face. After drying and ironing it flat it was time to bring out the shears and tape measure. I measures 31 1/2" across the span marking small blue dots at each stop. Then I held my breath and made the first snip. After that it gor easier and before long both layers were ready to be attached to a new white headband that was embelished with a row of lace and pearls, the same ones I had sewn onto Rachel's oldest sister's wedding gown. It took hours to hand sew each piece, but it was done in love and hope and it turned out quite lovely, if I do say so myself.
