The Rhode Island wedding: Part two.

Allison and Patrick's wedding, May 29, 2011 in East Greenwich, R.I.

We saw "Bridesmaids" last night, and while extreme, it did a good job of depicting what is most crazy-making about weddings. We throw together people of different colors, religions, socio-economic standings, political parties, value systems and world-views, and expect them to get along simply because they know people in love with one another.

Brides have a tendency to look to the past and honor childhood friends, acknowledge those who are newly important to them, and incorporate relatives when choosing a wedding party, which can be disastrous. At least it was in the film.

Zipping Ally's dress.

In my first wedding I chose bridesmaids who had been my friends since elementary school. I never see any of them now, and my closest friend growing up I didn't see once after the wedding. We had drifted apart after high school (as evidenced by my finding a Barbra Streisand cassette in her collection), but somehow it seemed important to have her there.

The lead character in "Bridesmaids" is feeling left out, and can't quite deal with her engaged buddy's new best friend: the super-rich wife of the groom's boss. She has to come to grips with the bride's new life, and has to learn that although nothing will be the same, the love between them is still there.

My homegrown bridesmaids.

That's what I had to learn, too. Roughly a month before my own October wedding, my daughter Allison announced that she would be moving to New York with Patrick, her oenologist fiance. Like, immediately. So she packed up, he headed out, and she and her cat Darby stayed with up for two weeks until our wedding, and she left for Long Island a few days after serving as one of my bridesmaids.

Grow your own bridesmaids and flower girls, that's my advice. That way you'll be sure to see them again....

I barely had time to wrap my head around her being 3,000 miles away, then she was here for a few glorious weeks, and then gone. And I was now married, a state that my daughters needed to get used to; I wasn't always available 24/7 like I had been before. 

Then came the announcement that the wedding would be in six months. In Rhode Island.

Pop-Pop making foghorn noises
to make Charlotte giggle.

This trip was the first time I had been to her apartment since she moved, and it was cool seeing in person what I had only seen while we Skyped (yes, it is a verb, lucky I don't have a copy editor, they'd be arguing with me). Then we were racing to tip of Long Island, past Gatsby country to catch the Cross Sound Ferry to New London, Conn. on onward to Rhode Island.

Allison has always been family-oriented, wanting to have family game night and just hang out together, so it was no surprise when she brought out the "Authors" deck on the ferry. We played this Go Fish-like game for hours when my kids were little, gathering "books" of Shakespeare, R.L. Stevenson, Poe, Longfellow, Sir Walter Scott, and Louisa May Alcott. Having her new love playing her childhood game — that must have thrilled my youngest.

A post-Authors card game on the ferry.

Perhaps I am too acculturated to the desert now, but I have to say: there are entirely too many trees back East. When one is used to seeing the horizon in every direction, having your sightline reduced to a 20 or 30 foot diameter because of trees and bushes felt a little claustrophobic. I now understand why film director Wim Wenders says that Germans are so taken with the American West — because they can see so far.

Rhode Island may not have the Black Forest, but it has many, many trees, and roads so idiosyncratic that  my husband and I were lost, together and separately, for five out of the seven trips we took by car. East Greenwich, the location of the church, was founded in 1677, and has those piled-stone walls you've seen in every Revolutionary War movie. You can practically see Redcoats marching by while ragged Americans crouch behind them.

The backyard of Ally and Patrick's apartment.
See what I mean? Too many trees..

I guess the town grew up around water sources, and then roads were built to connect everything, because following directions is impossible. Sprint coverage must be spotty in that location, because my GPS wasn't working, and often, when you were supposed to stay on a particular road, you actually had to make a left, because if you went straight, the road changed. Rhode Islanders must take Yankee thriftiness to extremes, because there were no road signs. You could find out the name of every alley-way off the highway, but not the main drag you were on.


We checked into our hotel, and the wedding weekend began. The bridesmaids, mother and grandmother of the bride, and the bride's father's fiance had a rather sedate, although scrumptious Italian dinner out, and I dropped some of the above off at a tavern for more raucous entertainment at what the Brits call "a hen party." On the way back to the motel, I got lost for the second time.

Charlotte had stayed with my husband, and she drove him crazy demanding to be taken first to "the hot pool" (spa), and then the "the cold pool." When my daughter picked her up, she had passed out in front of the television (a rare treat). Apparently she got annoyed because Pop-Pop couldn't rewind live television like her parents do her DVDs. A commercial would catch her fancy, and she became annoyed when her cries of "Again?" got her nowhere.

It was only the beginning of a very busy weekend for Charlotte....

A gratuitous shot of Charlotte and her mommy, Megan.