Walking in a White Dress

Every little girl dreams about the say that she will walk down the aisle on her father’s arm. She is in a white dress and she is beautiful and she is walking toward her prince charming. Her father is smiling and her mother is crying. Nowhere in this dream does the little girl see that getting to this day means that she and her mother will almost kill each other.

I am getting married in eight months and I am in the middle of planning, what I thought, was a very simple wedding. I wanted to marry the man I love and have been with for eight years in the church where we met. I wanted be in a simple white dress carrying a bouquet of white tulips and have my cousin and a few friends as bridesmaids. Then I wanted to go to the reception hall behind the church and be with my family and friends having cake and punch. That was my vision—a small, traditional Southern wedding. I did not know I would be fighting my mother the whole way.

I want a hundred and fifty people to be invited. That includes my close family and friends and my fiancé’s close family and friends. This happened to be the first piece of information that would send me and my mother on a bad downward spiral. I was driving with mother to meet with a photographer that I was considering for the wedding. We started talking about the amount of people that the church would hold and who the most important people would be to invite. I mentioned that we would not be able to invite everyone who attends my church. She shot daggers through my head with her eyes. She burst into tears. She said, “How can we have the wedding at the church and not invite our church family?” I was driving and trying not to jump out of the car from shock and fear. I said with trepidation, “But there are eighty people that go to our church.” She screamed back, “Yeah, I know that!” Things continued to escalate. To make a long story short, she ended up crying and we were fifteen minutes late to meet with the photographers because she could not go into their studio crying.

Let me be clear, my mother is not crazy. She is normal—I think. These little incidents have continued when I told her that I wanted only white and green as my colors, that I did not want her cousin to be my guest book attendant, and that we told only invite a hundred and fifty people to the ceremony. Each of these incidents has ended with her crying and me waiting in confusion for her to stop.

During one of these episodes, she told me that she had been dreaming about this day longer than I had and it meant more to her than me. She said that one day, when I had a daughter that I would understand. I could not believe that she said that! How could my wedding day mean more to her than me. I am the one getting married!

Then I considered where she was coming from. I am her only daughter and as long a have been dreaming of my wedding, she was dreaming of it before I was born. Maybe she looks at my wedding plans and she wants my wedding to be prefect and better than hers. I am not the type of person to back down from want I want, but maybe I need to handle her a little more gently. My strategy now is to tell her everything I am doing with the wedding and give her some control on the things that do not matter to me as much. I never thought the biggest obstacle to planning my wedding would be my own mother, but then again, she is my biggest inspiration.