Friday, April 4, 2008

Mother Of The Bride…

I’ve just been through the joy of being a mother of the bride. Our daughter married last September…and thanks to a wonderful, unselfish bride and groom and fantastic family backup on both sides, we had few trials. Soon after their engagement, we got the news we were moving from Australia to Switzerland in a matter of weeks. Our daughter and son in law (and his excellent family on both sides, to whom we owe our undying gratitude for taking us all into their hearts and homes) just took over. We had few things to worry about – so few we felt a bit left out! But once our daughter let us know she wanted our input, all was well. We dress shopped together, bride and bridesmaids, groom and groomsmen, and it was a really fun day. Jaime found a dress in a day – how’s that for no fuss? – and shoes. Through my husband’s contacts at work they chose a wonderful venue for the reception by Terrigal Beach in Australia (thus taking care of where to have post-wedding pictures…they were gorgeous, and the photographer even provided beach shoes for them). Crowne Plaza did much of the hard work, but Jaime and Chris chose décor and the buffet dinner. They even found some black 1965 T-birds for the wedding cars at a budget price! Our other daughter’s friend is a wedding photographer, and did marvellous shots of the happy couple.

We had a truly happy and memorable day with family and the bride and groom’s lovely young friends. We came home for the wedding of course, and organised house moving at the same time. Our house was left empty and we wanted good tenants, so were able to give the bride and groom their first home (shades of My Big Fat Greek Wedding there…and the groom is Greek!) It was a beautiful sunny September day, perfect for them, not too hot. Everyone truly loved the day.

Only one thing did not turn out perfectly: my daughter listened to some advice, but not Melissa’s great advice about taking your wedding shoes to buy a dress. I told her about it but she ignored this, and an hour before her wedding, found the dress too long for her shoes and nearly fell on her face! She had to change shoes from those comfortable ones to higher heels, and ended up with sore feet. But it’s a small price to pay for the truly lovely, happy, memorable day we had, on both sides of the family.

Melissa J

Labels: family, melissa j, mother of the bride, planning, wedding day, weddings

posted by Melissa James @ 7:00 AM