Not at All Smokin' Hot. No Less Delighted.

 

One of my sassier friends (Hi, A!) was a bigwig at a convention I had been scheduled to attend when we found out that Boy#4 and his Lovely Girl had chosen that weekend for their wedding. I emailed her, and laughed at her reply: "My love to you. And happy blessings on the weddings and the *smoking hot* mother of the grooms." She reminded me after my last blog post that I had promised pictures of this presumed hot-itude.

Well. 

The problems with posting pictures of oneself is that this is absolutely the most blatant, most pathetic, most eye-rollingly cringey way to force people to pay compliments. 

This is not what I'm looking for, but I get it. Ever since I entered the possibly-someday-might-be-Mother-of-the-Groom realm, weddings have focused me like a laser on what the women in the front right pew of the church were wearing. Long dresses or tea length? Blingy or subdued? Hats or no hats? If you are, or may someday be, an MoG, you want to know the how's and why's of the dress code.

This is, after all, the sole responsibility of a MoG: You must show up clothed during the wedding. (I'm ignoring, of course, the other responsibilities delineated in "Wear beige and shut up," because as if.) 

Friends, I spent more hours in the six months between engagements and weddings fretting about what I would wear to those two weddings than I did deciding what I'd wear to my own wedding. (My mother's dress. Boom. Done.) Frankly, I spent more hours fretting about this than deciding who I'd marry at my own wedding, but that's a story for another day.

The first three months I worried about dress length. Then I worried about which color. Then I worried about relative gaudiness. I spent hour after hour Googling "Mother of the Groom Dress--Long" and completely borked my social media algorithms to the point that I never saw anything but shininess and cleavage on my FaceBook ads. (Rabbit trail: Are other Mothers of the Groom as interested in let-it-all-hang-out dresses as my ads were indicating we are? Because, huh. That day has passed for most of us, sisters.)

Anyway, in March Husband decided he'd had enough of hearing me bemoan my impending nudity at two church weddings. We were heading to a weekend with the grandsons (and their keepers) in the Big City and he suggested we stop at a mall on the way. I was not a fan, since I'm famously hard to fit off the rack, but whatever. I wasn't making any progress. 

People, I married a genius! We walked out of the mall with two dresses, one that was found for me by the same saleslady who found me my dream dress for the Boy#2/Lovely Girl#2 wedding five years ago, and a second dress that practically threw itself at me after I had tried on a variety of ill-suited (So. Many. Sequins.) and ill-fitting (So. Much. Cleavage.) options. 

But did I stop fretting? Of course not. The second dress, although I thought it was beautiful, was not really compatible with the color palate of the intended wedding, so I kept looking. I ordered dress after dress to hang on the doorway to the guest room, trying them on and sighing. 

Poor Husband learned to not give an opinion even when asked. 

(Flowered Dress)

Him: "What do I think? It definitely fits the idea of the wedding theme better than the first one. Would you be able to wear a shrug or something, since I know you're uncomfortable with bare arms? It's a real possibility. What do you think?

Me: "I HATE IT!" 

(Sequined Dress) 

Him: "What do I think? Well, I think you're beautiful no matter what you wear."

Me: "I HATE IT!"

(Chiffon Dress)

Him: "What do I think?.........How about going out for supper so you don't have to cook?"

Me: "Okay."

Not counting the dozen or so dresses I tried on in the mall, our mail carrier began to routinely drop off boxes from businesses that cater to mutton dressed as lamb. Finally, a random Amazon search was the surprise answer: The wrong-colored dress I loved at the mall was available in navy blue--and navy blue was the color of the men's tuxedoes! Woohooo! 

The Mother of the Groom at the final two Weddings of the Century was definitely not smokin' hot. Clothed and appropriate would be more suitable adjectives. But I loved both dresses, and was comfortable and celebratory for hours of hugs and dozens of pictures. Worrying about how I looked did not enter into my complete delight at the occasions.

Tepid and delighted are exactly what I wanted to be.

Perfectly Different, and Perfectly the Same

So how was June for you?

The residents and former residents of the House on the Corner had an unbeatably splendid June. Over the course of 15 days, the number of Lovely Girls who have committed themselves to our Boys doubled, leaving us to post the "Out of Stock" sign in the Unmarried Sons Market.

Scheduling two weddings and one international honeymoon over the span of three weekends would seem to be the height of insanity, but, oh Dear Reader(s), this was joy not just doubled--it was tripled and quadrupled and multiplied exponentially. 

When our final son was born, a well-meaning friend looked at the fourth of our big-headed, bald, bouncing boys and laughed. "You don't have babies, you have a series of clones," she told me. Post-partum me, who had known their diverse personalities with each kick, did not appreciate that assessment. I was more than a little miffed because I knew then what I know now:

They are the same, but they are different.

All of the Boys are funny and smart and kind. They are "competitive but not particularly athletic," as one rehearsal dinner toast described them. They are sensitive and discerning, and they do not suffer fools gladly. 

Also, they are different. Our Boys include extroverts and introverts. Thick-skinned and emotions-on-the-sleeve. Decisive and deliberative. 

But they have one indisputable trait in common: They all have chosen and been chosen by extraordinary women. All four have married women who resemble each other in the best of ways--funny and smart and kind, hard-working and beautiful, competitive and discerning. They're just the same except in the many ways they are different--extroverts and introverts, quiet and more exuberant, night owls and early birds. 

The two June weddings mirrored those same-but-different couples. Both ceremonies were set in historic stone churches with late-afternoon sunlight streaming through stained glass windows. Both couples chose traditional vows and held each other's hands as they promised to love, comfort, honor and keep each other in sickness and in health. At my request, both couples made my mother's favorite hymn part of their ceremony. 

The two events, though, were reflections of each of the couples. One was a Texas-sized celebration with a glow-stick-lit banger of a dance. The other was small, intimate, and all but a handful of the guests were related to the couple. That reception featured a jazz trio and a trivia game. 

They were, in other words, personal and perfect. 

At the final rehearsal dinner the three already-wed Lovely Girls chose seats next to each other. That didn't surprise me; I am humbled and grateful that they genuinely like each other so much. I was moved to tears, though, when each, in turn, welcomed their new sister-in-law on the eve of her wedding.

They know that marrying into our clan is not for the faint of heart, that four Boys can be, well, clannish.

But just look at the pictures at top of this post. Make note of the wide smiles, and the beauty of the day, and take particular note of the joy in those faces looked at each other. Their delight lit up the rooms. It was the same at the weddings of the first two Boys.

Our Boys love and are loved by loveliest of Lovely Girls. That's the only sameness that matters.