Ringing

The bigger the scope of a dream or plan, the more likely disappointment would follow. I cite Don's and my wedding as an example I will likely regret. My mother was attempting to help us plan a big wedding for July. The guest list was mounting, the costs swelling, and I was ready to go off the deep end over the whole nightmarish affair right down to a panic attack during our engagement party. The whole sorry planning period ended with a phone call to my Mister Elect on a Wednesday afternoon informing him that we were done being engaged. Sensing that the end of Wedding Planning could be near, and that his bride-to-be was headed for a total melt-down, he agreed to head to city hall with me that afternoon. My Dad had no comment other than to take Don and I with our new marriage license out to dinner and inform us that he was "fine" with the lost deposits which were a laughable fraction compared to the savings headed his way with our bargain basement nuptials. With his help we determined that we would not run off to New Mexico, but would instead get married in my parents' living room. I will refrain from sharing the responses of either my mother or my in-laws.
Our guests would be whomever could get there by Saturday. Our colors? Well, the flower girl had a pink dress from a prior wedding that still fit, so our color was pink. The nurses and nurse aides whose schedules I arranged every week at work were promised last-minute schedule change coverage for the individual who provided the Baptist minister to lead us in our vows. (Doesn't sound like much, but it was a big enough boon for several coworkers to offer up assorted officiants. The winning nurse aide presented us with a minister who looked just like David Koresh, preached on Sunday morning, and was a magician in night clubs Thursday-Saturday evenings.) Rather than invitations, we went with a simple wedding announcement which went out after the big event.
All the other details fell into place with slight changes from what was already in place for the bigger party plans. A call to the bakery found they could deliver the top two tiers of our wedding cake on three days' notice. The dress shop phoned with the message that my wedding gown with its chapel-length train had come in early. Since it needed not a single alteration, my mother-in-law suggested that I would regret not having "my dress". And I felt like a princess in it--- a princess who could neither bend nor breathe, but a princess none-the-less. Don and I visited the florist who we had chosen to be told that she could absolutely have the boutonnieres, corsages, candelabras, and bouquets ready for the weekend. Don's sister and my brother were to act as our attendants, and she had a green dress. So my brother wore a green shirt, and our colors become pink and green.
Daddy called a temporary truce between warring family factions for the big day. He and I made a trip to Hobby Lobby for the last few little decorative items. My Aunt Dee filmed the wedding. We had no music. Photographs were limited to those taken by point and shoot cameras or those for which Don and I posed later in a studio. Mom was horrified, and Don and I were thrilled to offer my Dad's fajitas to our guests for the post-ceremony meal. Our wedding was a small, admittedly thrown-together affair, but it served its purpose. The mister and I will celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary next week on Choose-Your-Own-Holiday Day, so apparently the size and cost of the ceremony have little enough to do with the depth and joy of the marriage or the way in which a pair opt to celebrate it.