Two descriptions to fill the priests heart with dread in the lead up to a wedding. Super efficient mother. Wedding planner. They sound reasonable enough but both have to be circumnavigated with great care.
On one of my first weddings here, every time I tried to talk to the bride I would be fobbed off with the words
"I'll get my wedding planner to ring you."
At least wedding planners have no emotional baggage and are unlikely to burst into tears on hearing the word no.
After the last wedding two weeks ago I am approaching this one with apprehension. I know they won't all be plastered because mother won't let them.
She really is a force of nature and so far we are on a good footing. With any luck we will stay that way. But some times it's just not possible. Our flower ladies do not like to be interfered with and have all got mobile phones which now work in the gully by the sea which houses the church.
It's often the flowers which are the catalyst for disaster.
One lady brought a van full of glorious flowers from Covent Garden on the Friday before the wedding. The resident flower ladies did their best but failed to arrange them all and left them in buckets of water for the next morning.
The mother had worked most of the night but the back of the church was still piled with flowers.
Three flower arrangers were drafted in to help but quit when the mother, tired and emotional became difficult. I went down to survey the scene of chaos and came home full of dread.
I returned to the church an hour before the ceremony was due to start.
Mother was up a ladder putting flower rings round the Norman columns.
She left about five minutes before the service should have started.
The bride was almost an hour late and on reaching the porch burst into tears..her mother weeping behind her. It had all been to much!
Simple is a word I use quite a lot in the run up to the big day.
It often falls on stony ground though.
Once more into the breach. Later.
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