On the 6th, I think wedding stress was beginning to come to a head for Lesley; the clock was ticking and there was still far too much stuff to do with too little time to do it. We spent the morning getting her some last-minute things for her wedding and honeymoon, and then at 5pm, everyone converged on the Kemper Center to decorate the reception hall. It only took twenty minutes of walking around, banging on various doors, for someone to let us in–and only then because another couple had an appointment to look at the building for their own wedding reception.

I’d only been inside the Kemper Center once before; I had a piano recital there when I was 12 years old. Lesley’s reception was in an area I hadn’t seen–the dinner itself was in the study hall, the dance floor was in an open area, and the bar was in the chemistry lab. Words cannot describe just how awesome a chemistry lab bar is, and it was only more appropriate given that both halves of the now-married couple are scientists. You know what this wedding could mean to science. It could mean actual advances in the field of science!

The tables already had linens and glassware, so all we had to do was set up the centerpieces. There was a mirror in the center of each table. Resting on each mirror was a clear glass vase, partially filled with blue and white glass pebbles, filled the rest of the way with water, and had three floating candles on top. Surrounding the mirrors were dried white rose petals and blue (hibiscus, I think) petals. Seated in the petals were the guest favors of little glass pots filled with more of the blue and white glass pebbles and a stalk of lucky bamboo. It gave off a very nice effect, and the dried flower petals made the whole hall smell lovely.

Lesley, however, was having a conniption fit–they were renovating the building, and now the outside of the windows were covered with plastic; she was furious that they’d ruin her wedding pictures. She’d broken a vase, and her mom didn’t replace it with the exact same one. The ‘goddamn flower people’ had misled her as to how many petals she’d get, and she subsequently ran out. I just kept my mouth shut (for once) and filled vases with water, trying not to spill on the tables and mostly succeeding.

Soon, bellachiara6 showed up, along with some of Lesley’s relatives and Steve’s parents. Lesley’s aunt started counting all of the glassware on the tables, and discovered that there was a table with a missing glass. She pointed at me and said “You’re the maid of honor, right? So you’re in charge of this; they’re missing a glass.”

…

What? I flew over 2,000 miles to…be in charge of glassware? Nicki and I went off to search for more glasses. These are the things we found:

*telephone *ajax *toilet brush *first aid kit *tablecloths that looked like nun habits *many cases of wine

No glassware. I think everyone can be in agreement that I just became a massive failure as a maid of honor.

After it was determined that I was a failure in the glassware department, I learned there was no plan in place for how I was going to get to the Milwaukee airport on Sunday, since Lesley and Steve were leaving from Chicago that same morning. In all honesty, this little revelation made me furious. Being here for her special day was nice and all, but getting home was also something of a priority for me, what with my job, and my apartment, and my dog all still in Washington. It’s not like I was renting a car. It’s not like Milwaukee and Bristol are anywhere near close enough to take a cab. It’s not like even a decent percentage of the scores of people who were so excited that I’d be in Wisconsin even bothered to so much as contact me while I was there, so could I rely on any of them to take me to the airport? Hardly! Nicki stepped up to the plate, but I felt bad for asking her to do yet something else for me, since at first she was just going to be my date. Then she was reading something at the wedding. Then she was lighting candles in the reception hall before everyone else came up. Then she was carting me around to various pre-wedding appointments. Now she’s taking me to the airport? It was a lot to ask. I understand that Lesley was under a LOT of pressure and couldn’t be expected to plan every last little detail, but if Nicki hadn’t been there for me on this trip, I don’t know what I would have done.

Still steaming out the ears a bit, it was time for the rehearsal, where it was discovered that while many people had ideas about how the wedding COULD go, no one had a concrete plan about how the wedding SHOULD go. Now, I will admit that the last time I was in a wedding, I was a five-year-old flower girl, but Amy has made me watch enough romantic comedies (GAG) that I know how to walk down the aisle. I also used to do design work for a company that sold bridal accessories, so I have a repository of useless wedding information floating around in my brain.

For example, when it was my turn to walk down the aisle, first I was walking too slow. Then too fast. I was like Goldilocks the goddamn bridesmaid.

Then when we did the walk out of the chapel, no one had any idea how guests were going to be directed to the reception hall. Steve’s mom suggested a receiving line, which would give them an opportunity to greet every guest and would get people moving in the direction of the reception hall, but because the suggestion came from her, Lesley flipped her shit, turned and pointed at Steve and hissed, “Your mom is REALLY pissing me off.”

After we ran through the whole thing again, it was time for dinner. Steve’s mom wanted to go back up into the reception hall and move the namecards for parents and immediate family members like Steve’s brothers and my date to the table directly in front of the head table. While they went upstairs to argue over who should be seated where, Steve’s father suggested that Nicki and I make our way to the restaurant and order ourselves some drinks on his tab. We felt this was a damned fine idea; I tried to call Lesley six or seven times to let her know I was riding with Nicki, with no answer. I left her a voicemail or sent her a text message so she’d definitely know where I’d gone, and then we headed out.

Nicki and I took a small detour past the house of a guy we both used to date, and we gossiped and giggled about people who we used to know who grew up into adults who live in their boyfriends/girlfriends’ parents’ basements. We ended up arriving at the restaurant shortly before Lesley’s parents, and we stood and chatted for a while. It seems like Lesley’s mom has finally stopped hating on me for being a ‘bad influence’ now that her daughter was almost married, and we actually had a pleasant conversation, to the surprise of all.

When Lesley drove up, if looks could kill, I’m fairly certain I would not be writing this entry. As she looked for a parking spot, her mom mentioned that she was outraged at being ‘abandoned’, and as she stormed up, Nicki did some quick thinking, pulled out her noisemaker from the night before, shouted “It’s a bachelorette party!” and blew on it as hard as she could. Part of me thinks that Nicki’s presence of mind saved me from getting into a screaming, hairpulling, wrestling match with the bride in a gravelley restaurant parking lot over something trivial and stupid.

Throughout dinner, Lesley kept making references to ‘being abandoned’ and ‘being left alone’. If someone asked her how she was getting to the chapel so she could ride home with her husband, she’d say “Oh, I’ll probably end up ALONE” and glare at me. The tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. I hoped she would not order any meal that required a knife to cut. I hoped that were this the case, she would not instead use her knife to cut ME. To cut me so bad, I’d wish that I’d never been cut.

Steve’s brothers, Mike and Tim, and his best man, Brett, sat at our end of the table, and Mike elicited a moment of horrified silence when he asked how long Nicki and I have been dating. Nooo, nononononononono, no. No. You’ve got it all wrong, son. Nicki is my ‘date’ to the wedding because no average man wants to accompany a maid of honor to a wedding, especially if they don’t have something serious going on, whereas lots of girls like getting dressed up and dancing. A lady was the right choice for me to make in this situation, that’s all! I just hand-fed her an appetizer because she couldn’t reach the plate that the groom was jealously guarding, that’s all! Apparently all of the people on the groom’s side were convinced that we were sisters…and lesbians. Creepy lesbian incestuous twin sisters.

On the way home, Lesley and I stopped at a carnival that had been constructed overnight, and all was forgiven when I plunked some money down to ride the rides.

See that happy, blurry, excited, FORGIVING face? All is well in the world now!

Most everything at these roadside carnivals are called ‘fun’ this and ‘fun’ that. I feel that is inaccurate. Terrifying? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. Life-threatening-because-someone-was-drinking-on-the-job-and-had-parts-left-over? YES.

…but still fun.

I mean, take a GOOD look at that picture. Aren’t those tombstones? What sort of ‘fun factory’ makes tombstones? Isn’t that really much more like a ‘death factory’?

My parents never allowed my brother or I to attend these sorts of carnivals, because they were convinced we’d be murdered by carnies and made into hotdogs.

The carny who took our tickets for the monkey ride looked like the insane homeless guy I’d given change to the week before in Seattle. This is how I knew we’d have a good time in the 20 minutes until the carnival closed for the night.

Once, my dad spun the teacup ride at Disney World so fast that he blacked out. The best I’ve ever done was to make the ‘Chubasco’ ones in the ‘Southwest Territory’ section of Great America spin so fast I made Rosemarie Bisciglia throw up for three hours afterwards. This time, I was only able to make Lesley very woozy. I’m concerned that I may be losing the only superpower my family has!

After nearly breaking my ankle in the ‘death factory fun house’, and flirting with the carny operating the tilt a whirl so he’d run the ride longer (you have to be shameless if you want your money’s worth!), we rode some sort of terrifying flying contraption. The carny let us on, but shuffled everyone around to ‘balance the weight’. I am glad that with his scientific eye, he was able to determine exactly how much everyone weighed so as to keep us from dying. All with what smelled like half a jug of homemade whiskey under his belt! That is some goddamn effective science, ladies and gentlemen.

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