One
Puck wasn’t there to wake me up early as usual, spending the night with Gloria instead. So I had to actually use an alarm this morning. Not as pleasant an option.
Fortunately El Oso was off for the holiday weekend, so he could join the caravan to decorate Beaumont Scout Ranch for the wedding. All the family, minus the two boys.
I guess a scout ranch is sort of an unconventional choice, but it worked. And with Joe being an Eagle Scout, it fit. The dining hall lodge backset by a grove of tall thinned pines. Sixteen rectangular tables ready for layering with linens and light-able objects.
While Dad and Jaya’s dad consulted together on the best engineering method for stringing lights from the ceiling, Irish and Cherry polished chairs and windows. Rose and Annamaria tag-teamed to sweep up and light up the long screened porch. Puck and Jaya’s little brother did odds and ends, generally keeping out of trouble. A pretty impressive feat for two kids under eight. And the rest of the ladies, including Carrie and myself, arranged the tables and the kitchen.
Lunch was Costco, brought in by Gloria and El Oso: cold cuts with croissants, Hawaiian rolls, or pretzel rolls, potato chips, and fat chocolate chip cookies. Just enough time to grab a handful of it on the run.
After two trips back and forth between Beaumont and Weldon Spring, drove the sisters and Puck back to the Big House for a quick change, and back out to the church where we arranged the bundles of tissue paper blooms on the aisles and the wedding arch. Between safety pins, caught a few moments of Joe and Jaya practicing the recessional. After all this time of a Snicketts wedding-lull, I guess it even then still didn’t register that my little brother’s getting married. Maybe tomorrow it finally will.
Looked up, time to go again. Macaroni Grill in Chesterfield. The day was almost over and even with all the running, neither Carrie or I could finish the large dishes of pasta. A large table kept themselves busy laughing over who-knew-what, all these old friends, including Magnus, Rose. and Irish scribbling space-scapes and other doodles on paper sheets with crayons (Magnus took his home), chowing down on Martha’s baked dessert spread of cookies and cheesecakes, Carrie and I trying not to check the Cards’ score in Cincinnati too often, Puck wearing Francis’ blue sparkly bow tie for the evening and looking quite handsome, and discussing all those things you discuss right before a wedding.
The blur before the big day had concluded, successfully.