Weddingbee

About three and a half hours before our ceremony, I was driving to my hair appointment. As I was driving, my mother was telling me a ridiculously long, drawn out story about a friend of hers who had four very different husbands. It was meant to distract me. Meanwhile, I was imagining what would transpire were there no wedding here today.

Let me rewind.

I woke up on my wedding morning. The sun was shining. Ahh, so maybe the stories would be true. For over a week, people had been inundating me with stories about rainy days that cleared up just as a wedding was about to occur. Maybe it would actually happen to me too.

An hour later, it started pouring. Pouring. Lightening, thunder, the works. I sulked. We called our coordinator to see what she thought we should do. Her line was busy. We called another line. It was busy.

Around 1 o’clock, I headed over to the venue to make some last minute setup decisions and to meet one of my bm’s, my mom, and my FMIL (now MIL) so that we could drive over to our hair appointment together. My bm had gotten there before me (because I had taken a wrong turn and driven ten miles out of my way). She had already asked a staff member to unlock the bathrooms, the bridal room, etc. I went into the bathrooms to put the baskets in, and they were dark. I thought nothing of it.

Once everyone arrived, we headed to the hair appointment. I called Mr. BG to check in and make sure everything was on schedule. While doing this, I started to tell him about how the restaurant that’s adjacent to our reception hall was dark, despite the fact that our coordinator had told us it would be open at 11:30. “Isn’t that weird?” I asked. Just then, my bm cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and said, “they have no power.”

Huh?

“I didn’t know how to tell you, but I guess I have to now.” At this point, both my mom and FMIL admit that they, too, found out there was no power. “I asked them not to tell you, I’m really sorry,” my bm professed.

Wait, what?

Apparently, the generator was struck by lightning. When my bm arrived and asked them to open up the reception hall, she was told that “everyone is freaking out because there’s supposed to be a dinner for 100 people!”

My mom was being litigious. My bm was being optimistic. My FMIL was being quiet.

I’m not sure how I reacted, but I just remember thinking - oh well. I fully believed there was a chance the wedding would not happen. They couldn’t light the room. They couldn’t cook. They could not host a wedding. So what more could I do? I felt badly that people had come all the way for nothing.

I told Mr. BG. I don’t think he took it well. But we decided to continue on schedule and see what happens.

At 2:16, as I sat in the chair getting my hair did, Mr. BG called. “I’m at Dunegrass. Our coordinator is here. The power has come back on.”

Relief.

“She recommends that even if it stops raining, we do the ceremony inside.”

“Okay!” At that point, I suddenly didn’t care that the ceremony was inside. There would BE a ceremony. And because I like to believe that things can happen for a reason, I have convinced myself that the power went out to put things in perspective for me. At least there would be a ceremony. At least I would get to marry the love of my life on this particular day. And from there on out, everything was perfect.

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