The Beautiful Day

A friend of mine recommended a book to me recently called The Beautiful Day. She said I should read it since Brittany is getting married. It’s about a mom and daughter planning the daughter’s wedding and then what happens at the actual wedding weekend.

The only difference between them and us is that mom is dead and communicating through a notebook she left behind, and I am still very much alive and communicating my ideas through email and the phone.

I love computers – you can nag long distance so easily!

Things have actually been going really well. For the first time in my life I am allowed to repeat and repeat myself because she’s just as afraid as I am of something falling between the cracks.

We’ve also been bonding every evening after the mail comes when I call and tell her what rsvps have come back that day.

But shopping for THE DRESS was a highlight! And it meant a day trip. Even dad came! And bless him for not once mentioning he was the only male in the store!

We drove to Charlotte on a Saturday morning in probably the worst storm of the summer. (And we’ve had some bad ones this year!) Naturally with the weather the way it’s been for the past two months we’ve been worried about our decision to have the ceremony outside.

Last year when we put a deposit down on the venue I asked the manager where we would hold it if it rained that day. His answer? “It’s not going to rain!”

Now I’m not so sure. But we still haven’t come up with a plan. I WANT to be optimistic. I WANT it to be sunny and beautiful so that we can take lots of pictures all over the grounds of this wonderful house. There’s a gazebo, balconies and a double curved stairway outside that are meant to be in wedding pictures!

I never thought I would consider an outdoor ceremony for this very reason. That I’d be worried for months before that it would get rained out. And this summer hasn’t alleviated my fears.

That’s why the book was helpful. First it made me grateful that I’m here for the event! And second something the wedding planner character said at the end of the book. He said he had done about two hundred and fifty weddings. Some in unbearable humidity, some in scorching heat, some in rainstorms and even a few in blizzards (in April!)

But every one of them was beautiful.