wedding blogs

July 28, 2010 - 1:31 PM

When the sky falls

So a young bride I know, whose wedding is in about two weeks, just found out that the venue where she’d planned to have the reception, is completely flooded. And she doesn’t live in her hometown, which is where she’s getting married. And there’s like, half of maybe a place in some other part of town, which might be available. And, of course, the invitations—to almost 200 guests, some of whom do not have email at all—have long gone out, with the reception venue and its address printed on them.

I know, right?

And I’ll tell you something else, something about my own wedding. I got married in Scotland. In Edinburgh, to be precise. And of course many, many of the guests flew in from the States. It was over Thanksgiving weekend, much festivating was planned…as you’d expect. What I didn’t expect was the phone call from the priest, the day before the wedding, telling me that the Royal family were in town to return the Stone of Destiny to the Scots (long story, don’t ask), and the ceremony was going to be at the very cathedral where I was getting married, and that they would need to have secret service posted before, during and after my wedding, and that they were removing my flowers because they needed to get the Royal flowers in place before their ceremony. Oh, and, would I mind terribly changing the time of my wedding? Say, by about seven hours?

Which is why, in the pictures from my wedding (which did take place at the previously planned time—a girl’s gotta draw the line somewhere), it looks like we wandered in to someone else’s ceremony. Which, in a way, we did.

Why am I telling you all this, you’re probably wondering? Because, it’s very very easy during the planning of a wedding to think that everything is life or death. If you don’t have these flowers, the whole thing will be a disaster. If you don’t play that song first, the reception will fall flat. If you don’t serve those appetizers, no one will eat. And so on. But guess what? Sometimes the worst, the very worst, can happen—and the day goes ahead, anyway. I don’t think that anyone noticed the blue and white flowers except me, I really don’t. And even though none of the Americans knew how to ceilidgh, dancing ensued and all was well.

And as for my young bride friend? Her family has come to the rescue: they’ve found a venue (which, surprise! She actually likes better), they fashioned a phone tree to let guests know of the change, and all is well. As she said to me last week, “I’m actually kind of relieved that this happened. I feel like I faced my worst fear, and I found out that it wouldn’t kill me.”

I know just how she feels. Good luck, ladies!