A Wedding Disaster... Or Was It?
By
Sheila Holmes
Copyright © 2014 Sheila Holmes
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.
Ebook cover and formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com
Acknowledgments
This is the first book in the Wedding Woes Series. Yes, there are more to come in this series.
I don't think until now that I ever took seriously the words of my principal who told me, after a scheduled observation of my second period class, that rather than just teaching my classes, I put on five performances daily. His counsel was that I put those dramatic skills to work writing a novel. He didn't seem to care what kind of novel, just that I should write. Thank you, Dr. Hill. If you should ever dig this up and read it, thank you for encouraging me to do this. I'm just so sorry that it took me twenty years to act upon your counsel.
My adorable husband, Daniel, has always been my champion and prayer warrior. He has always thought I could do just about anything that I want to do. And, he pretty much lets me do just that... anything I want to do. But what I prize the most is that he prays for me to make the right choices, and do them "heartily as unto the Lord." I'm thankful Daniel is sharing this life with me, making the hard times more bearable, and the good times just hilarious. The Lord knew that I needed someone with an oversized sense of humor to counteract my gravity. He will always be the one-and-only love of my life.
DanniLaii, our adorable daughter, is far beyond all my expectations. She, like her father, can make me laugh when almost no one else can. She chooses daily to become an exceptional woman of God. She uses her spiritual gift of helps to minister to her mom all the time. I am so proud of her choice to follow the Lord in her life, and for bringing Carl into the mix, who acts as my "human garbage disposal," willing to eat anything I send home to him (and always brags on it, even though I know my cooking couldn't possibly be as good as he says).
Finally, I want to thank any and all who stumble upon this work of fiction. If I bring any enjoyment to your life through this "tall tale", I've done my work. I can hardly wait to complete the second in this series, and hope that you will enjoy this book so much that you'll be waiting with anticipation to read the next.
Books by Sheila Holmes
Wedding Woes Series
A Wedding Disaster... Or Was It?
A Catastrophic Wedding Reception... Or Maybe Not?
Wedding Designed by Email... KiirstiAan's Nightmare?
Non-Fiction
With This Ring: Creative Ways to Give Your Purity Ring to Your Future Spouse
Christmas Romance Plans (How-to) Series
Christmas Romance: 25 Dazzling Days to Romance Your Spouse 'til Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Romance Plan
Awesome Love Series
Becoming His Awesome Beauty: Volume 1
Becoming His Awesome Beauty: Volume 2
Fixing His Broken Ballerina: Volume 1
Fixing His Broken Ballerina: Volume 2
All in a Name Series
Joyful, Joyful
From Grace Abounds Grace (coming Winter 2016)
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Books by Sheila Holmes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Book II Sampler
About the Author
"And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who
are the called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28, The Bible.
Chapter 1
Simply put, instead of her usual emails to me which consisted mainly of texting language, such as "RU", "luv u", "^5", "AAF", "88", "511", "AATK", "ABD", "AYTMTB", and various other ones I still can’t make heads nor tails of, two weeks ago she emailed me the following:
Mom,
I was thinking about our phone conversation day before yesterday. While we discussed all the minutia of my upcoming wedding, you told me some of the most outrageous wedding disaster stories I've ever heard. Instead of stressing and thinking, "Oh, no, what if any of those things happens at my wedding?!", I started giggling while I was telling one of them to Evan, and we were both laughing so hard that he choked on his soda. I could hear him gagging and trying to catch his breath. It scared me so bad, because there was no way I could help him over the phone. He finally caught his breath and said that while he wanted to hear the rest of the story, he needed to "keep things more serious" until he could breathe properly again. He told me to save them until we go out tomorrow evening for dinner. I gave two of the stories titles (Drop-Dead Gorgeous, and Corny, But Cute), and I'll share those with him then.
I got to thinking, though, when I got off the phone that you told me at last count you were either an attendant in- or a guest at thirty-two weddings since you were in your first one as a junior bridesmaid at age ten for your brother. (I believe your comment was something to the effect that you had seen some of the most unbelievable wedding incidents known to man, so much so that you felt like you could write a book.)
So... Why don't you? Write a book, I mean!
Nope, nothing else to say, just WRITE A BOOK!
Later!
KiirstiAan (Your Favorite Daughter, oh, yeah, I forgot, I'm your ONLY daughter, and your only child!)
After thinking about it (and praying about it for a couple of weeks), I emailed her back and simply said:
Ok! I'll write if you'll proofread.
Her simple email reply:
You're on!
My email reply to KiirstiAan:
Why is it I feel like each story needs a title? I don't know. But, it's my story and I want it to have one. So, there you go. I'm going to call this one, The Bride Wore White... and Green, and Pink, and Blue, and Gold.
Ok, it's named, I can start now.
Chapter 2
Chelsea wasn't one of those girly-girl fashionistas who had been looking at wedding gowns since she was so young that she wouldn't know what a "girly-girl" or a "fashionista" even was. She was simply a young engaged woman who had loved looking at her mom's and dad's wedding album ever since her childhood and admired the beautiful dress (albeit so outdated that it was laughable) that her mom had worn the day she married Chelsea's daddy, some twenty-nine years ago.
Her mom was now in the presence of Jesus since the car crash two years ago caused by no, not a drunk driver, just a young guy returning home from college during spring break who fell asleep at the wheel that night and jumped the highway divider into the oncoming traffic lane, ending both her mom's life and his own. It still caused her sighs of melancholy each time she looked through the well-worn pages of her parents’ wedding album.
She had never thought it could be any other way. It was just assumed that she and her
mother would do the whole wedding-planning thing together for her wedding day, probably agreeing on everything, including venue, food, flowers, attendants' dresses, right down to her own special-day gown.
That was one thing at which she and her mother had always marveled. Their tastes in almost everything were spot-on the same. But the assumption that they would plan that joyous event together was wrong, and now Chelsea was on her own. Her mom was gone, and her father was fighting his own terminal-cancer battle, having no physical or emotional reserves to assist her. He had saved money faithfully during the years for both Chelsea's college education and wedding, but when she'd bring anything up about her current planning stage, he would simply re-iterate that he trusted her judgments on "all things wedding." That phrase from her father always ended any further conversation. He was too weak and in too much pain to help this daughter that he so loved. Chelsea was asking the Lord continually to let her father be here to walk her down the aisle. "Please sustain him long enough for my wedding day, Jesus," was her continual prayer.
*****
So it was that Chelsea completed all the planning herself for her upcoming wedding. During those four months, she was assisted now and then by her four bridesmaids, but they each were unmarried and hadn't been through the process themselves, so their help was limited. Chelsea valued and leaned most toward the design opinions of her maid of honor, Delane, who was an art major with indescribably beautiful taste in both art and fashion. (Chelsea had actually purchased two of Delane's watercolors and posted them on the walls of her dorm room.) But, Delane as well as the others voiced their opinions, of course, mainly about their own attendants' dresses, which she duly noted, but again, the overall planning and decision-making rested heavily on her own shoulders. Chelsea's father had given her the instructions to pay for the attendants' gowns, as well as the flower girl's dress so that she could have full and ultimate control over what her wedding would be, without any of the grief heard of so often when bridesmaids want their own visions realized rather than the bride's. Since he was too ill to participate in the planning, he wanted to give her the ultimate gift of realizing her vision exactly as she had it in her mind and dreams.
*****
Her wedding day arrived bright, sunny, and unusually warm for April. If there had to be a day with horrid weather, she was so grateful that the Lord had allowed yesterday to be that day. The sporadic downpours had made everything sparkle with a fresh newness, and Chelsea was beside herself with joy, excitement, and a large sprinkling of nerves. The joy and excitement were understandable. After all, it was her wedding day! But, what was the nervousness all about? She had meticulously planned every detail of this day, and frankly, it was coming together without a hitch.
Well, maybe "without a hitch" was not exactly accurate. There was the momentary panic when the bakery said they hadn't produced the exact design Chelsea so thoroughly explained and paid for. She had a dream vision of a four-tiered cake with very specific decoration detail. As soon as she laid eyes on this culinary creation, she exclaimed, "You're right. This isn't what I dreamed of. This is so much better!!!" It had three tiers and a much more stunning decorating design. Whew! Thank you, Lord!
Then, there was the snafu with the florist, located some twenty-plus miles north of the old country church Chelsea had rented to fulfill her Country Shabby Chic wedding dream.
While they had created the most magnificent arrangements for the old church she rented, and the bridesmaid's bouquets (as well as her own) were beyond perfection, they had completely forgotten the boutonnieres for the groom, his attendants, the father of the bride, the father of the groom, and a corsage for the groom's mother.
For a hefty charge, they had delivered her flowers to the church. There was no time today for them to now go back to the florist, design the forgotten items and return them to the church. Here it was, the morning of the wedding. What was she supposed to do now?
She was quick to admit that her confidence was in the Lord, but even so, a semi-panic gripped her heart. Chelsea looked up the address listing for the closest florist, jumped in her car, checked her watch and mentally recorded 9:14 a.m. (a little less than nine hours until the ceremony), and drove the ten miles to the local country town with its one-and-only florist. (And the term "florist" was being generous.) It was really a street stand with fruits, vegetables, and flowers that grew in their own home garden.
Jumping out of her car at the worn old stand, Chelsea carefully trod through the mud of yesterday's rain up to the stand and asked for help with the flowers. She noted that on the stand to the side of the main attraction of produce, there was a small basket with scissors, florist tape, wire, a small cluster of brightly-colored flowers, and a few spools of assorted colors of ribbon. Certainly not the makings of a floral business, but at this point, she was desperate! Her only encouragement at all was that the flowers were truly beautiful! But there were so few of them, not to mention the fact that they were random types of flowers, as well as a multitude of colors, none of which was a part of her wedding style or color theme. Chelsea just knew this was going to be an impossible task ahead of her.
The young girl running the stand pulled an iPhone out of her worn red gingham apron pocket. Chelsea giggled inside, because the stand, the handwritten sign above it, the old shanty in the background all spoke of decades past, not of the tech-savvy days of this decade. She listened as the girl held the conversation. "Nanny, this here girl wants some flowers... I don't know... she ain't from 'round here. Let me ask her." Raising her voice much louder than necessary, the girl asked Chelsea, "What d'ya need 'em for?"
"I need some boutonnieres and a corsage. Today is my wedding and the florist didn't bring me all the flowers I ordered."
The girl relayed that message to someone on the other end of the line, hung up, and within two minutes an old bent-over woman descended the rickety porch steps and joined Chelsea at the produce and flower stand. Her open-mouth grin exposed the reality of no teeth, which she asked pardon for, saying she couldn't find her dentures anywhere in the house before coming outside to help. Chelsea was heartsick. This poor old thing not only looked like she could drop dead of old age within moments, but she no doubt had no clue about boutonnieres, corsages, and generally what is appropriate at modern day weddings, even if they were held in an old country church in the middle of nowhere.
Chelsea knew it was fruitless trying to explain that she was going for a Country Shabby Chic wedding style. The old house in the background showed that the woman had a clear knowledge of country and shabby, but would never understand chic joined with them.
Before Chelsea said even one word, the elderly woman crooked her index finger back and forth, signaling Chelsea to follow her. And thus the two walked, the elderly woman slightly ahead as they approached the house until they turned the back corner at the side and entered the backyard. Chelsea took a gigantic breath as she gazed at flowers that were unequivocally the most beautiful she had ever seen. It wasn't so much a garden as a small field of color that dazzled the eye. The sun was shining brightly and illuminated them until the view looked quite surreal.
The old soul never once asked Chelsea what her floral desires were. She walked into the flower field and began picking singular buds of this kind or that, Gold Stocks with their long stem and golden round orbed flower, massive handfuls of Goldentuft, and long-stemmed hyacinths in a multitude of colors.
Chelsea stood watching her, saying nothing. She was in somewhat of a shocked stupor that did not allow for words.
The old woman walked in and out of the rows of color, using the pluck-n-stuff method. Pluck a flower and stuff it into a large potato sack that hung from a looped rope thrown over her shoulder. At one point Chelsea realized that her own mouth was hanging open, and she consciously closed it. Her lips may now have been closed, but her eyes were still wide open, and as round as two silver dollars. She was contemplating two issues at once.
First, the old woman didn't know that she was
single-handedly destroying Chelsea's color theme. She had decorated the entire country church with white and cream roses, and tied the pew rows together with looped strands of starchy white tulle. What in the world was she going to do with multi-colored hyacinths, Goldentuft, and Gold Stocks?!
Secondly, she was mentally calculating the costs of all these flowers as they were plucked and stuffed into the potato sack. The florist had charged her seventeen hundred dollars for the arrangements and bouquets that were already at the church, both in the main worship sanctuary and the downstairs fellowship hall, where the reception would be held. By her mental calculations, the elderly woman had already collected about two- or three hundred dollars' worth and was not giving any indication she was through. How in the world was she going to pay for this?! She had maybe twenty-five dollars in cash between what was in her purse and any change she might find in the car glove compartment and between car seat cushions.
Even so, she did not say a word. She just stood in one spot and watched the elderly woman continue her mission, which seemed to be emptying as much of the garden's contents into the potato sack as was possible. Already the seams were puckering and yet more flowers were being placed within the sack's confines.
Several times during the filling of the potato sack, Chelsea would begin to speak in protest, but before more than a word or two came forth, the old woman would bounce a hand several times in Chelsea's direction, indicating that Chelsea needed to stop talking, that it was “interrupting the creative juices,” a term she was sure the old woman had never heard in her life.
Fifteen minutes later, the old weather-worn woman just walked out of the garden with her filled potato sack, back around to the front of the house, to the produce and flower stand, leaving Chelsea standing in the backyard alone.
After a moment, she realized that the old woman was not returning, so she walked back around to the front of the property, and specifically to the stand where she saw the old woman bent over a table of sorts made from two crotchety saw horses with several old boards side-to-side perched lengthwise across the six feet of open expanse between them.
Walking around to the front of the old woman, she already began to see magic being performed, as the elderly woman created boutonnieres for each male attendant, the fathers, and a stunning corsage for Derek's mother. As she put the finishing touches on the corsage and never lifting her head, she asked a question of Chelsea, "Do ya have any o' that see-through material they use at weddin's, I think they call it "twool" or "tullie"?" Chelsea knew exactly what she was referring too and responded that she had some left after decorating the church, it was in the trunk of her car, and quite a bit actually. The old woman told her to go get it, and continued working over her floral creations.