Last night I had a wedding nightmare, and I'm afraid it's a harbinger of the Great Wedding Freakout, which isn't scheduled to arrive until September. Anyway, the dream started in medias res; I was upstairs at a house getting ready for the wedding. I knew that we'd driven to the wedding location (a bed and breakfast? Mike & Judy's house?) that morning, and we'd packed everything we'd need. As I dashed by one of the windows, I could see the tops of the guests' heads outside in the courtyard. They were all seated. I had a flash of the suit Al was wearing, so I supposed he was out there, too.
I started looking around for my dress, and realized it wasn't there. "Oh fart!" I thought or said out loud, "I can't believe it! My worst fear, that we'd forget to pick up the dress from the dry cleaners, has just come true. Fart, fart, fart!"
I started rummaging around in my overnight bag for one of the outfits my sister had helped me pick out for the honeymoon. I found a pair of black slacks and a black top with silver stripes (it looked like a pair of socks that I own) and put those on. I put on some plain black socks, threw on a black linen blazer, slid on one black wedge-heel clog and was rummaging for the other under the bed when the phone rang.
I briefly considered not answering it, and in fact heard the machine pick up after two rings. Then I thought, "what if it's someone from the courtyard calling on her cellphone to say that it's time for me to make my entrance?" I dashed over to the phone, picked it up, and said "HELLO?"
"Hello, Lori," said my Grandmother Hylan from the other end. (She's not going to be at the wedding, so I knew she must be calling from home, not the courtyard.)
"Hi, grandma. I don't have time to talk right now."
"Lori, I was just wondering, did you enter a project in the Science Fair yesterday?"
"GRANDMA, I REALLY DON'T HAVE TIME TO TALK! I NEED TO FINISH GETTING READY!" I practically shouted, and hung up the phone. Kind of rude, I know, but under the circumstances, it seemed not inappropriate.
As I rushed back around the bed to continue looking for my other shoe, I realized I also wasn't wearing any makeup. I was farther away from being done than I thought! Drat! Just then my sister came down the hall toward the bedroom, and she was holding a bunch of CDs spread out like a poker hand. "Is your processional music on the X CD, the Y CD, the Z CD, or..." (she rattled off actual titles of CDs that I own or have mixed myself, but I can't remember exactly which ones).
"No, no!" I said, very much like Lucy from A Charlie Brown Chrismas would have. "It's on the white Ceremony Music CD." I then looked at my sister, who was looking back at me seemingly without registering that anything was wrong. "Guess what we forgot to do?" I asked, and then answered myself: "The thing I was most afraid we *would* forget to do!"
Lisa: "What?"
Me: "Pick up the dress from the dry cleaners! Why else do you think I'm wearing black?! Is it time for me to make my entrance? Because I'm not ready yet."
I rushed past Lisa into another room, which had my mother's dresser and large mirror in it. (She's had this piece of furniture since I was little.) I stood in front of the mirror trying to put on my makeup as Lisa replied, "yeah, pretty much. Everybody else is in position."
"How do I look?"
"Um, OK." replied Lisa.
"This outfit makes me look enormous, doesn't it?"
"I think it's just the blazer. Do you have anything else?"
"I think I have that little 3/4-sleeve black sweater in my bag, will you get it for me?"
At this point the stress of the situation totally overcame me, and I woke up. I stayed awake for a little while and managed to wake Elmo, the more pesky of our two cats. He proceeded to walk all over me for the next four hours, so I didn't sleep very well once I finally drifted off again. I hope this first wedding nightmare is the last, but I fear there are more to come.
Posted by Lori at August 23, 2002 05:35 PM