You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
Tonight our good friends Cat and Dave are getting married. P. is performing the ceremony and Caroline is the flower girl. I’m just in charge of keeping the flower girl quiet after her moment in the sun is over. May God have mercy on my soul.
Last night, after a rehearsal at the church that involved Caroline showing her aisle “walking” skills that basically looked more like a 50 yard dash and saying that maybe she might do a flip, Caroline went to go spend the night with her Mimi and Bops while P. and I went to the rehearsal dinner and got to have a genuine adult night out.
Okay, total change of story but the adult night out made me think of a Gulley story. When Gulley’s sister Sarah got married 2 years ago, Gulley and her husband were hanging out with Sarah’s friends after the rehearsal dinner and Gulley said “I don’t think we’re going to go out. We’re just going to go back to the hotel, get in bed and watch an ADULT movie!” All of Sarah’s friends were wondering why anyone would admit such a thing and Gulley had to rethink and explain what she meant was a GROWN UP movie that didn’t include any characters named Nemo.
Are you still with me? So back to the original story. The rehearsal dinner last night was one of my favorite rehearsal dinners ever. I know that a large part of that is because we have known Cat and Dave since they were kids. We’ve watched them grow up, start dating, get engaged and plan their future. They were at the hospital when Caroline was born and are just so special to P. and me. They both come from incredible families that are so open, loving and kind.
Cat’s sister had put together a slide show for the dinner and y’all I was so teary I couldn’t even see straight. I kept watching the pictures of Cat as a baby and a toddler and I’d look over at her daddy and the look on his face told me that he can’t believe how fast the time has gone by. Cat’s the baby of the family, but she’s the first one to get married. Her older brother and sister got up to give a toast and what they said was so sweet that I told P. it made me want to go home and conceive a sibling for Caroline as soon as possible. And that’s saying something.
So here I am wiping my eyes with a napkin made of the roughest material known to man, when her daddy gets up to give his toast. I have always been a daddy’s girl myself and now that I have a daughter…I’m just a sucker for Daddys and daughters. His speech was perfect. He tried to find a book for Dave on How to Train a Cat, but when he went to the pet store, they told him those books don’t exist because, “Sir, you can’t train a cat.” He said he’d known that for years and wished Dave good luck. But then he said something I’ll never forget. He thanked Cat and Dave’s mamas. He said “People talk about how it takes a village to raise a child, but that’s not true. It takes a mama to turn these kids into what they have become, so to Cindy and Sandy thank you for raising such exceptional children”. As a mother, does anything inspire you more?
After the dinner, all of the young people (of which P. and I are a part although we’re at least 7 years older than everyone else, but we hold on to the fantasy)decided to go to a bar somewhere so we could hang out and maybe dance. Now keep in mind that we’re a REAL wild bunch so we had no idea where any bars were or that you had to have I.D. to get in. So after a few failed attempts, we left downtown and headed to a bar closer to home so everyone could get their I.D.s.
Y’all I was dancing to Hollaback Girl at 1:30 this morning. I don’t even remember the last time I was up at 1:30 a.m. when it didn’t involve a toddler and a bad dream. P. and I busted a move on the dance floor and probably confirmed why people in their mid-30’s shouldn’t really be at cool, trendy bars because we didn’t care how we looked. And do I have to tell you that when they played 867-5309 that I was yelling all the words to the song? Oh yes, yes I was.
At one point last night, P. and I were talking to one of our girlfriends and creepy old guy (you know the guy that lives at the bars and doesn’t realize maybe life has passed him by?) came up to P. and said “Dude, what kind of cologne do you wear?” P. is hard of hearing in the best circumstances so he looked at the guy and said “What?” and creepy, old guy said “What kind of cologne do you wear because you’ve got these ladies swarming around you?” Can I get a collective EWWWWW from the crowd?
Anyway, it was a great night and the best part is we get to do it again tonight at the wedding reception except this time we’ll have our little flower girl/dancing queen with us. And to Cat and Dave…We wish you all of God’s richest blessings today and forever.
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