Rehearsal Dinner, My Way, and Are We Almost Through?

My mom, after doing some research discovered that according to traditional American wedding, er, traditions, the mother of the groom is responsible for the Rehearsal Dinner. My misguided understanding notwithstanding, this is a time for the bridal party to practice the ceremony and then have a nice dinner the night before the wedding.

So many disparate members of my mom's family were going to be in town together for such a short time my mom was compelled to invite them to the Rehearsal Dinner. The dinner turned into more of a party, a pre-wedding party, with a few minutes we were able to steel away into the living room and go over the ceremony proceedings.

It was a blast.

But it did underscore a subject that always has a way of creating a certain level of havoc with whatever laid-back-ness is present in brides and grooms.

Sometimes with birthday parties that are for you even though you're not into them it's almost the same thing: a situation that is all about you but is also a train off the tracks; something out of your control. I imagine many weddings go like that. A party controlled by other people that you have no say in but stars you as a central character.

I would never say that my brother didn't appreciate the Rehearsal Dinner Party my mom threw for him and Lupita. But, from my own observation, I would say that an accurate statement would be that the whole shebang did cause stress for my brother.

Dan and Lupita were all about control of a certain kind: control of their own stress levels. They had meticulously planned and delegated to just the right lengths and just the right people to maintain their own extraordinarily high level of sanity during the end-game maelstrom of the wedding. The dinner represented a thing they hadn't planned for, and a thing that made what it was supposed to be about that much harder to accomplish.

While Holly was the master planner and wedding attache for the what seemed like, eh, everything, it would be wrong to say that Dan and Lupita were cool as cucumbers.

Well, maybe they were. Actually, cooler, even, but they did have tiny invisible frazzled moments. I had the right kind of glasses on to be able to see.

I did get to see some of the real person that my brother and his new wife have become. 'Pita and I had the talk that's characterized as the "I just can't wait for all this to be over with" talk. I've had it before with other people, and it usually is a topic broached initially with a hushed tone of, "I know this sounds awful, but..."

No, no it doesn't sound awful. It sounds natural. It's cathartic to talk about it, really.

I also sort of felt guilty a little, and told Dan and 'Pita that.

Some of the stress being supplied by my mom, my mom doing a thing she felt obligated to do, maybe rather a perceived role that she felt obligated to fill, but it was a role fully denied to her by the nature of mine and Corrie's wedding. So, in that way, by maybe fueling her motivation to do something, I felt responsible.

Of course, when it was all said and done, the Rehearsal Dinner Party was super cool. The food was good, the company better, as a more badass event I couldn't have planned myself.