Holly's wedding--more details

The plans for the wedding didn't come easily. As of last Monday no one was sure where or even in what city the wedding was going to be. Over the weekend Holly's stepmother finally couldn't stand it any longer and called some hotels in Albuquerque to enquire about wedding facilities and blocks of rooms. She got a lead on a nice one at a reasonable rate (Hyatt). We talked about all the options and she called ones in my town which is where Holly and her dh live as well and got some prices. Finally, finally Holly made her decision to have the wedding at the Hyatt in Albuquerque. I'm not really sure why they decided to have it there when most of the family and friends are here in our town, but that's what they decided.

I think she was getting a lot of "feedback" from her dh's family about the wedding. Weeks ago I offered to host it here in my home which is not a large home, but is very nicely arranged for such a thing as a wedding. We've had both a wedding and a reception here in the past. Eventually I was told that the groom's mother was not comfortable with the idea of being in my home. Supposedly it harks back to when my dh paid a little visit to Holly's then-future dh and told him to stay away from his daughter. I guess his mother didn't understand why a father of a pregnant 18 year old would be concerned when a 28 year old tatoo artist with a LOT of "history" starts showing interest in his daughter. Whatever. I also think his family has been fed quite a bit of other information about my family that is incorrect. I'll leave it at that.

Dh, the girls, and I drove to Albuquerque in plenty of time to arrive by the 1:30 wedding time. We easily found the hotel. There were chairs set for about 40-50 and it was just the right number. The minister was a friend of a friend, no one we knew personally. He did a nice job with the ceremony, then we were all ushered out to the lobby while the hotel staff set up the room for the reception.

During that time something interesting happened. I was standing a few people away from Holly, her new dh, and his parents. Suddenly his mother went storming in front of me saying in a loud, mean voice, "I'm going to go find your parents and tell them what you did!" I looked down and there was my four year old dd S, the object of her anger. I stopped her and said, "I'm right here, is there a problem?" "There certainly is, your daughter kicked my husband in the shin!" I apologized profusely and reprimanded S. I never did find out why S kicked him ("twice," according to him), and of course it is wrong for anyone to kick anyone else, but c'mon, the child is four years old for goodness sake. This is a weird situation for her and things happen. The mother's reaction was way out of line for the magnitude of the incident, IMO.

After that we were let back into the room and enjoyed heavy hors d'oeuvres and soft drinks. We had heard the groom's father was pouting because the hotel didn't allow alcohol in its public areas. I wonder if he hosted his own reception at a bar somewhere? That's the obvious thing to do instead of complaining when someone else is footing the bill.

Oh, one more funny to show you how things went. I offered to cut the wedding cake as I had a job a number of years ago in which a key aspect of it was to cut wedding cakes. IOW, I know what I'm doing and how to do it. The cake was a lovely "All American Chocolate Cake" from Costco. Three of them, in fact. It was about 12" in diameter and four layers, so for a cake that size you cut all the way through from top to bottom parallel to the outside edge, but half way between the middle of the cake and the edge. You cut a ring, in other words, as you work your way around. Then you cut pieces about 1" wide all the way around, then cut the remaining center like a birthday cake. One of the punks there (a brother of the groom, I think) gave me grief about how I was cutting it and the size of the pieces. I offered him two pieces right then or to come back for seconds and he still ragged on me. WHATever.

In the end, however, Holly got married and that is what this whole thing was about.