Wedding

 The most exciting time in any family is the wedding and all of the things leading up to the special day. You plan for a year or more to get it right. The first daughter to marry was so exciting. Nan was overwhelmed with joy. She was marrying an Italian man who had a huge family not to be overdone by Nan's immediate family of 60. It was a chore to narrow it down to the top 100 friends and family. With so many sisters, friends, and grooms family how many brides maids should there be? Was 10 too many? They settled on 7 brides maids and 7 grooms men, 2 flower girls and a ring bearer. 

What were the colors and what where the men going to do to match the ladies. It was settled on Gold  with beige undertones, floor length, long sleeves because the wedding was in January. This was the first  great grand child, first grand child and first child. It had to be big, it had to be spectacular and it had to be right. They chose the largest, most expensive venue in town. Her parents had to impress their new Italian family to be, also put a show with the best dance band almost a full orchestra. Flowers, cake, photographer, dress fittings, tuxedo fittings, mother of the bride dress and flower girl dresses. OH YES the church with the perfect flowers, white runway, ushers with her favorite priest.

There were 4 bridal showers with screaming ladies but the registry was not a common event back in 1966. There were duplicates of a few things, mostly blenders and toasters. So many beautiful night gowns, panty and bra sets and a couple of naughty unmentionable items. The guys road around the block honking their horns of the '64 Chevelle, '65 Mustang, '63 Corvair, '65 Roadrunner during the shower. The ladies would run out of the house, wave to the guys and back to the shower. Everything was coming together so smoothly. How could anything go wrong?

The family made tissue pom poms to go on the cars. The parade of festive cars stretched around the church for an entire block. Each brides maid and usher had their own vehicle. IT was quite a spectacle. People came out of their houses to see what all of the commotion going on in the neighborhood on a quiet Saturday morning. They thought the Bishop was coming to say mass. Off to the reception that started at 1pm with the announcement of the newly married couple. The food was served the cake was cut but everyone was on the dance floor doing the TWIST, HOP, LOCOMOTION,THE STRAND and they never sat down to eat. There was plenty of drinking going on because the groom was 21 and the bride was just over 19. At midnight the orchestra stopped playing with people in shock. Little by little people strolled out the door to their cars. There was a huge section of the local paper devoted to the wedding the following week. Everyone was thrilled.

In early July the bride gave birth to a full term 7 pound baby girl. She was perfect, brown hair blue eyes just like her daddy. YES just 7 months after the wedding. 

May all of your dreams come true!

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