Everyone has seen the expected Bridezilla. The one going off on her bridesmaids for looking better than her. For not allowing them to color their hair or tan days before the wedding. Even those brides that insist the bridesmaids gain weight so that she, the bride, can be the skinniest.
Well, I have invented a new reality show, MOBZILLA. Yes, I am the mother of the bride that went ballistic.
It was bound to happen. Everyone kept commenting on how mellow and together I was through this last year. Calm, cool and collected, that’s me. Not really. I am the epitome of passive aggressive. The bride would make me angry; I would have a glass of wine and just not talk to her for the night. The groom would irritate me; I wouldn’t buy him beer for a few days. Just a few subtle ways of me dealing with my anger. Probably not the text book way of doing things, but it works for me.
What does this lead to? Let’s see, there are a lot of ways to describe it. Rivers run deep. Cold as ice. A disaster waiting to happen.
Well it happened. . .
And who should be the brunt of my explosion? My best friends.
A perfect wedding ceremony.
The flower girls made it down the aisle!
The bishop didn’t even mention eternal life or being sealed in the temple. Bonus!
The groom cried, priceless.
The bride panicked because she didn’t get her ring before the I do’s!
The untraditional Father-Daughter dance was beautifully executed.
Bar tab came in under budget.
So what went wrong?
The stupid flowers got thrown away. And who did I blame? My best friend. The one, who wrote a beautiful speech, spent countless hours sewing flower girl dresses, filling petal boxes, shopping for baseballs, getting me wine, holding my hand and encouraging me for the last year. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
It was a few seconds in lapse of my judgment. Why cry over flowers that will die in a week? I didn’t. I cried over hurting my best friend’s feelings – all of them.
I have pictures of the flowers and that is what will last. Every bride tries to save her bouquet but in years it is thrown away. It is the memories that stay. That is what I forgot. No one cared that they got to take an arrangement home for a week. But they will all remember that I blew up for a split second.
It wasn’t just hurting my friend that gave me anxiety, it was the thought of the bridal bouquet that kept me up. On it was pinned the something borrowed: KyKy’s god-daughters baptism rosary that we had blessed by the Pope when we were in Rome and the something old: Kyky’s Great-Grandmother’s watch that her Great-Grandpa gave her grandmother on their wedding day. The same something old that my sister used on her wedding day. Things that only have meaning to us. Silly I suppose in the realm of things. Friendships are more important than objects aren’t they?
But I was the MOB. KyKy was texting me from her honeymoon to make sure I got her bouquet and the treasures off of it. How could I tell her it was gone for good? Compacted in the daily garbage?
To make you feel better . . . I dumpster dived! Knee deep! A very nice non-English speaking facilities man escorted me and Spermy down to the trash bins and together we tore through eight dumpsters. We found nothing but a lot of hotel room garbage. I mean nasty stuff. Dirty q-tips. Kleenex. Room Service. You get the idea. I stunk! Not sure my hands are clean yet! Where was Kir for those pictures?
Our good friend Ron proceeded to dive through several more, eventually finding THE flowers!
Scott, the hotel manager took charge of holding MOBzilla’s hand through the crisis. A reward was put out to find the bride’s bouquet.
Monday morning, 8 AM I received a call. It was Scott. “I have good news, I’m holding the bouquet!” He insisted on delivering it to my room.
Needless to say, the concierge, the bell desk, the check out guy and the valet all asked if we found the bouquet. I am the crazy mother of the bride. Not sure I wear it proudly.
I thank my friends for forgiving my selfishness. They did not deserve my tirade.
