Bit of Ivory

Friday night, I had another wedding reception, this time for one of my
good friends from high school. Robert was also one of my brother’s good
friends, so we went together. It was. . . interesting. Not that the
decorations weren’t nice or the cake wasn’t pretty or anything, but
there was one slight problem that put a damper (literally) on the whole
thing: it was outside, and it was raining. Now, I realize that it
doesn’t tend to rain all that much in Utah in July, but if I was
planning an outdoor reception, I’d have some sort of contigency plan.
Weather is very unpredictable more that a few days in advance, and
since you usually schedule a wedding a few months in advance, you’ll
never know what the conditions will be. My mom and dad got married in
early March, and they had a blizzard that day. The wedding itself
usually isn’t a problem in LDS culture, since all you have to do is
book a time at the temple and show up. The ceremony usually goes pretty
smoothly. It’s the receptions that have the most interesting surprises
for us Mormons. If I had been Jessica, I would have booked the local
church just in case– it’s free, she was borrowing her tables and
chairs from there anyway, and the little backdrop for the line to stand
at and the one behind the cake would have transferred nicely to the
cultural hall at the ward building. Instead, they gave the little kids
who were helping with presents umbrellas. We didn’t get to use one,
because we were on the groom’s side rather than the bride’s. So my
brother ran back to the car to get ours, while I got soaked. In my
brand-new outfit. With a WHITE BLOUSE. Luckily my mascara was
waterproof.
About the time we actually made it to the bride and groom, they had
cleared away enough room in the house (the reception was in the bride’s
parents’ back yard) for the line to move in there, and the result was
utter chaos. The line became a large group with absolutely no order to
it, and the house just wasn’t big enough to accomodate all the guests
waiting to greet the bride and groom and all the ones eating the
refreshments. I left rather early.