Chapter 2 Follow professional advice (when you can get it) and pray (a lot)

When we started wedding discussion, the bride to be made the following statement: the only things I really care about are my dress, the flowers, the cake topper and the chairs. That was what she said That was not what she meant.

What she meant was, “I care most about those things.”

I  can best explain how things transpired by comparing it to that moment in the car when a group of people starts to discuss where to eat. There will be a lot of  “it doesn’t matter to me” and “I don’t care; whatever y’all think” until someone actually starts naming restaurants. Then there are lots of “oh, not there. The last time I ate there…” and “Mexican food just doesn’t sound that good right now.”

That’s precisely how our planning discussions went. The frustration we all felt is pretty much a given.

A relative of a relative, who is a wedding planner, heard we were trying to plan a wedding on our own and offered to help. I met with her by myself the first time. I looked at pictures of weddings she’d done and she looked at pictures of what I had identified as being what we wanted. As I drove away from her house, I had this overwhelming desire to cry. She had asked questions only someone who does weddings would know to ask. I had very few answers. As I talked to my daughter later that day, I realized that the answers I thought I had were wrong.

The wedding planner/.backdoor relative/good Samaritan, who I’ll call Glenda (because that’s her name) said two things I won’t forget.

The first thing she said is “I pray over all the weddings I do and this one is no exception.”  That thought got me through many a tough moment in the weeks that followed.  I knew Glenda was a prayer warrior and since I desire to be a person on frequent (even constant) and fervent prayer, I was encouraged by these words. I reckoned that if she and I were agreeing in prayer,  Jesus would be there in the middle of our plans. And He was…

The second thing she said is, ”at the end of the day, what matters is that the bride and groom are happy.” Obviously I was working to make/keep the bride happy but had not considered that the groom needed to be happy, too. Oops.

From then on, I considered the groom and his feelings, too. I prayed, a lot. And yes, I cried a little. Some of the tears were even happy ones!