Wedding Woes
Jennifer Simpson
“It’s okay Bonnie. No, no, you didn’t ruin my wedding. No really it’s okay. Oh, Bonnie, don’t cry. You’re not going to get fired. We can fix this. Don’t worry. Let me think about it for a minute and I’ll get back to you with a plan. Okay. Okay, bye.”
Who was that?
Bonnie.
Yeah, I caught that. Who is Bonnie?
Bonnie is decorating my wedding cake and she ruined it.
Ruined it how?
Well she’s crying so it’s kind of hard to understand but I think it’s currently broken and the frosting is made of shortening.
Huh. That’s not ideal. Since we’re on our way to pick it up and we need to serve it at the reception later. Today. In two hours.
Yup.
What do you want to do?
Can I ask you something? I don’t mean to be rude but I have a question for you.
Umm. Okay. Sure.
Why do you keep asking me what I want to do? Why can’t you help me decide what to do? I mean, every time something comes up about the wedding you say, “Ask the bride.” Why? Why do you keep saying that?
Because my mother planned my entire wedding and it was hideous. So I’ve been trying not to do that to you.
Okay, I get that, I really do but
But what?
But maybe you could have done a teensy bit more to help me. I pretty much planned all of it and now my wedding cake is a shortening frosted pile of trash and there’s no break between my wedding dinner and the reception and I don’t have enough napkins and my invitation had so many spelling errors it had to get reprinted and the guys are all going to wear shorts and knee socks because you told everyone to “Ask the bride” and the bride was taking finals and trying to graduate so “Ask the bride” meant “Tell the bride the stupid thing you are going to do while she’s studying so she’ll say whatever and then you can just do it.”
Wait. You wanted me to do more? Why didn’t you say something?
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to ask you. I wanted you to just do it. And when you didn’t do it, I thought that meant you didn’t want to do it.
Oh buddy. I’m an idiot. Bonnie and I should both get fired.
Bonnie shouldn’t get fired. It’s not her fault. The person who was supposed to do it got sick and Bonnie had to fill in at the last second. She hasn’t even had time to train. She’s only worked there two weeks.
How do you know that?
She told me before she started crying.
Well I should get fired then.
Fired from what?
Being the mother of the bride.
I don’t think you can get fired from that.
I over-corrected. I thought my mom was too involved so I decided to be cool and I was too cool. I wanted to empower you and I overloaded you instead. I’m really sorry. They’re really wearing shorts?
Yup. And knee socks.
Your pictures are going to be as bad as mine.
Yup. So over correcting didn’t work at all.
Yeah, I see that now. So what should we do about the cake?
Will you decide?
Yes. Do you care if your cake is not edible?
Not at all.
Okay. What’s Bonnie’s number?
Here, use my phone.
“Hi Bonnie. This is Amy’s mom. Amy is the bride. You are making her cake. It’s okay Bonnie. Don’t cry. We’re not mad. No, really. Let’s just salvage what we can and frost it with shortening. Okay? Don’t worry about decorating. We’ll put flowers on it. Just three frosted tiers. No one will know. We’ll serve a different cake. It will look great in the pictures. We’ll make all the groomsmen stand behind it so you can’t see they’re wearing shorts. Okay. We’ll be there in an hour. Thanks, bye.”
All set. So what words were misspelled on the invitation?
Solemnized, announce, and celebrate.
Can I tell you something? Solemnized was still spelled wrong on the corrected one. Can I tell you something else? You are the best kid and the only thing that really matters today is being sealed to Josh. Everything else is just frosting. Made of shortening. That no one can eat. And I love you. Now you can overcorrect and plan your dream wedding for your daughter.
Exactly. So no shorts and no wedding cake from a grocery store. And I love you too.