It all started three hours before the wedding began. Because that's how long it usually takes to get a family of four dressed, packed and out the door to such a function. For us it does.
I dressed myself first which is where the trouble began.
It would seem the $30 vintage dress that I thought was SUCH A BARGAIN when I bought it wasn't so much a bargain at all. At closer inspection, in fact, it was broken, unraveling, completely coming apart. (Note to self: try on specialty-outfits the night before.) And because it takes me hours to so much as sew a button properly, I had to flag down my mother from the other room to sew me into my broken dress, Project Runway style.
After that was done, it was time to get Archer dressed. Except the 5T tuxedo (also purchased second hand. Perhaps the lesson here is "buy new") was actually a 5T jacket and with a 2T vest and pants which.... Buzzkill! Especially after Fable spilled an entire bottle over her fancy wedding dress. And tights. And shoes.
"Ah, fuck it. It'll dry."
And it did.
The Archer suit situation, however, was a tad more panic-inducing. Besides the suit, I had nothing appropriate for him to wear to the wedding so Hal and Archer fled the scene. Their mission? To find suitable black pants.
Moments later, upon their arrival at Target, Archer had a brilliant idea that consisted of him running away from Hal to hide beneath a rack of Finding Nemo pajamas which lead to Hal's desperate wails, poor man. Now he had to find his son AND a pair of black pants for a wedding that had already started?
Brutal.
Luckily, Hal's running around the store yelling "ARCHER! WHERE DO YOU KEEP YOUR BLACK PANTS!?" lead to the eventual finding of our son AS WELL as a pair of slightly-larger-than-usual-but-sure-what-the-hell-they'll-do pants thanks to a kind sales associate who felt sorry for poor Hal, and twenty minutes later they were back home.
Of course by that time Archer was like "NO! I don't want to go to a wedding! NO! I don't want to wear a suit! NO NO NO! AHHHH!"
So I made up an elaborate story about the magic powers of suit jackets and shiny shoes.
Which worked. Because I'm a great liar. (That's a lie, actually.)
After four separate tantrums and two trips back to the house for bottles, diapers and deodorant (I tend to sweat profusely in large crowds. I get it from my dad.) we hit the road. Three minutes into our drive Archer passed out. Six minutes later, Fable was also asleep which meant that by the time we arrived at the wedding both kids were well into their REM sleep and there was NO WAY we were going to wake them.
So we waited in the car for forty-minutes until they woke.
And by the time we got everyone out of the car, the wedding was long over, but the good thing about weddings? They go on and on and on and on, so being two hours late, we were still plenty early as far as the reception was concerned.
Better late than never, we proceeded, the four of us into the "cocktail party" space, just in time to down a few choice alcoholic beverages.
Of course there's nothing for kids to do during cocktail hour besides spill everyones drinks and fish pennies out of the wishing well, so after twenty minutes of, "Sorry about that broken glass. What are you drinking? I'll get you another," Hal volunteered to take Archer on a walk to find a bribe.
Unfortunately, all he could find was a raisin scone.
"It's a cupcake!" Hal said.
"No it isn't!" Archer howled.
"Yes it is!"
"NO IT IS NOT A CUPCAKE, DADDY. CUPCAKES ARE MORE DELICIOUS!"
Archer ended up giving the scone away to his second cousin because he's generous like that.
And Hal got an A for effort.
When we made it into the banquet hall for dinner, everything got easier. Enclosed spaces full of children will do that, me thinks, and Archer and Fable spent the remainder of the night on the dance floor, Fable rocking back and forth on her knees as Archer practiced his rad dance moves.
Of course there was that one time during the Maid of Honor Speech when Archer decided it would be a swell idea to crawl across the stage with napkins on his hands. And we did lose Fable under one of the dinner tables for a minute or so, but other than that, all was kosher. The kids had fun and once the anxiety wore off, so did we.
Actually, you know what? Now that I'm writing this post and pasting all these fun, fabulous photos, our little wedding experience doesn't
seem so bad, which is weird because at the time Hal and I were like
"this is one of the worst days EVER!!!" and here I am writing about it
and I can't quite figure out why.
It looks positively lovely, even fun!
I guess you had to be there.
***
