The Wedding

Part II
How the Young Women Got Ready

Boys and girls are different. Special and wonderful in each their own ways, but undeniably -- worlds different.

While the boys were out eating breakfast burritos on the morning of the wedding, the girls were having their hair and makeup professionally "done."

Later on, while the boys strode about looking for something useful and important to do, the girls were primping and snapping and pinning, and shooing small children out from under their dressing tables.

The girls brought baskets and bags and boxes full of every conceivable tool for beautification and comfort, from toothbrushes to curling irons to extra panty hose. The boys brought nothing but their tuxedo bags and themselves.

It took the boys ten minutes to get dressed and twenty minutes to figure out how to put on cuff links. It tooks the girls an hour to get dressed and ten minutes to decide it was time to leave the dressing room.

A half hour before the ceremony, the girls were smoothing the worry off their foreheads and checking for loose threads and wandering straps; the boys were drinking beer and debating the best way to pin their boutonniers on so they wouldn't wiggle when they walked.

The boys guffawed loudly. The girls spoke in hushed tones. The boys talked about everything but the wedding. The girls talked about nothing but the wedding.

The girls were nervous as cats before the music started and the boys were puffed up with bravado and manly purpose, but...

When it came time to walk down the aisle, the girls moved with the beauty, dignity and grace natural to womanhood in its rightful place in the universe, while the boys watched from the front of the church, consciously holding their jaws in place -- suddenly nervous as cats.

Viva la difference!

* Since I'm the Mama of the Groom, I was spending more time with the boys and my own small children, so got even fewer pictures of the girls before the wedding than I did of the boys. Here are some, though -- mostly mine, but a couple gleaned from the website Paul set up for the family to compile and share pictures on. You can see from these first few shots that the little ones naturally gravitated to where all the pretty girls were... Anna thought they looked better than princesses.

Here's Nicole's neice and flower girl, adorable Allie, providing musical accompaniment in the girls' dressing room.

Theresa likes Allie's dress...

...And so does William.

Just a few more preparations and visiting with friends a short while before the wedding.

(In a cold room -- See Nicole's red sweater?)

Time's getting short.

Talking it through.

Deep Breath.

Ready.

Next Installments:

The Wedding (Pretty blurry pictures, because my camera was giving my brother troubles --but I might be able to get some more from somebody...)

Then The Reception (Also some blurry pictures because the lights were low and everyone kept moving... but but again, I may be able to get some from someone who's a more competent photographer than I am.)

And, finally (as soon as I get them) the Official Wedding Pictures, from Nicole's Uncle Jerry, the wedding photographer.

Am I boring y'all yet? This is starting to remind me of a dreaded slideshow presentation.