Wedding Flashback

(I have to be careful that stuff I write for other people doesn't end up here...but something I did last month reminded me of this. When The Big Kid got married...a big party as opposed to a big wedding.)

When we got to my brother's house (the wedding site) the day of the wedding the tents were already up, so we had lights and decorating to do. I had not, believe it or not, met the groom's parents. NOT because I'm not a "meeting" sort of person, as you know, but because the mom is COC. And the dad was on his fourth wife. And they didn't speak.

Not my job, people. Not my job. You want me to spend time in the middle of THAT tick fuck? There better be booze and lots of it.

So Flower Friend, Decorator Boy, my daughter and the groom are hauling flowers and chairs and lanterns and tables and such and all of a sudden this guy I don't know is up on a ladder, hooking up electrical stuff. And his daughter is standing at the bottom of the ladder, feeding him electrical wiring.

Turns out, this is the groom's dad and no....that's not his daughter. She was super attractive in a...West Lauderdale County blonde sort of way. Really toned body, overdone tan, great boobs that probably cost more than mine, lovely streaked blonde hair in a pony tail. Short shorts, fitted t-shirt. (We later learned that over the course of a year she had lost over 100 pounds. Dieting and exercising so...she earned those short shorts the hard way.)

My 70+ year old mother shows up, takes one look at her and turns to the group (which included the groom's dad) and asks, loudly, "Who is THAT?" G's Dad politely says, "She's with me," and my mom says, "How many kids do you HAVE?"

We started drinking then.

The day goes on, we did the setting up and the rain thing. I got back to my brother's house after getting dressed, and we started getting ready for a wedding. G'sDad and the step-mom were already there and the step-mom was killing 'em...fitted black linen sheath three inches above her knee. Black FM pumps. Upswept hair. I still hadn't met the groom's real mother. The Big Kid's ex-father and his family showed up and THAT was just a peachy-keen scenario, although it went smoothly and with as much dignity as one can muster while trying to put an ice pick through the heart of someone you haven't seen in 20 years. (Can we bring up the unpaid child support here? Or is this REALLY not the time?)

And then, right in the middle of getting ready to get started my daughter walked up with...a plump pink person. Blonde hair in an...old lady "do." Blue eyes. Pink skin. Pink linen. Sensible shoes. Sweet as could be. Pleasantly plump.

THIS is the mom.

It was like Angelina Jolie meets Debbie Reynolds. With some age on both of them. You have NEVER in your life seen such a contrast and such a...side show. Decorator Boy had dinner plans and was supposed to be leaving right before the wedding started, but he took one look at this set-up and was still there at midnight.

It took half the night to take pictures because that side of the family was divided into factions. His, hers, mine, yours and fuck-you.

And then everyone got theirs when the step-mom's 14-year-old daughter got into the booze and was shit-faced at ten o'clock.

(I had hired the music guy to play until 11 o'clock and at two o'clock in the morning I had to run him off, he was having so much fun. We started the night with champagne, liquor and beer stacked head-high and I know for a fact we made two alcohol runs before it was over. They only stayed married for three years so it's a good thing the focus was on "party" as opposed to, oh, say...LIFETIME COMMITMENT. Or such.)