Fed up

went to a boutique in Brookline to pick up my dress and my mother’s. Adrianna had wanted us to choose our own dresses, and she hadn’t wanted us in traditional bridal-party wear, so we were saved from having to sport pastel satin with poofy sleeves. I was wearing an adorable silk taffeta sleeveless dress in a soft shade that the salesperson referred to as “chocolate.” The dress had a fitted bodice, a scoop neck, and a pleated skirt. My mother had picked out a classically tailored suit in periwinkle blue with a beaded shell in a darker blue to go underneath. A wedding-party miracle: outfits we would wear again!
    Instead of returning home, I decided to deliver our wedding finery to my parents’ house. Otherwise, I’d have risked leaving our beautiful things behind on the wedding day. When I pulled up to my parents’ house, the sight of the gigantic white tent being erected in their yard made the wedding vividly real: Adrianna honestly was getting married! Filled with excitement, I grabbed the garment bag from the car and practically skipped over to my mother, who was standing outside supervising the tent crew.
    “Look at this!” I cried. “The tent is going to be fantastic!”
    “The tent is fine. It’s the yard that’s the problem,” my mother growled.
    I glanced around, looking for dead shrubs or insect-infested plants. “What are you talking about? The yard looks great.”
    “No, it doesn’t look great. It’s late August, and almost everything is past its bloom time. I should have planted more late-blooming flowers when we decided to host the wedding here. Dammit!” My mother crossed her arms and continued to survey her garden with dissatisfaction. “Dammit!” she repeated.
    “This event isn’t actually a garden tour, Mom. It’s a wedding. And we’ve got plenty of floral arrangements coming. It’ll be fine.”
    “No, it won’t be fine. Everything out here is shabby and blowsy.”
    My poor mother was funneling all of her anxiety about the wedding into unhappiness about her lovely yard. In a way, I couldn’t blame her. None of us had thrown a wedding party before. “Well, we do have our outfits,” I said. “I just picked them up. I’m going to put them in the house.” I gave my mother a hug. “Please don’t worry. This wedding is going to be perfect.”
     

 
    OH Friday, the day before the wedding, I awoke to a scene of devastation. Entering the kitchen in search of coffee, I stared in horror at the apparent evidence that the explosive force of a small bomb had hurled cooking implements and food items everywhere. The bomb had a name: Josh. My boyfriend, in full cooking mode, was preparing a salmon mousse while simultaneously parcooking large pieces of meat on the stove top.
    “How’s it going, Josh?”
    “Good. Good, I think. Thank God your father is grilling dinner tonight.”
    “We’ll see if you thank him later. Dad has the enthusiasm, if not the skill.”
    By braving the wreckage of the kitchen, I managed to make coffee. As soon as I’d had a cup of it, I got ready to leave for my parents’ house, where Ade and I were going to spend the night. Ade had insisted that even though the word traditional described nothing about the wedding, she still wanted to spend the night apart from Owen. Furthermore, she was determined that on Saturday, he wouldn’t see her before the ceremony.
    I packed a bag with almost every one of the hundreds of beauty-supply items I owned as well as with my digital camera and with clothes for tonight’s rehearsal and dinner. Later in the day, I would pick up Adrianna and return to my parents’ house with her.
    “Josh, are you going to be able to handle all of this yourself?” I wrinkled my brow as I watched oil splatter out of a Dutch oven.
    “Trust me, babe,” Josh said with a wink. “I’m in my element here. I guarantee everyone will be blown away. Besides, I’ll have help tomorrow. Digger will be there to deal with the kitchen during the ceremony while I’m standing up there with Owen. And that Emilio kid’ll be there, too, right? Your mother said he was going to do whatever we needed.”
    Emilio. Yum. I shook all thoughts of that hottie out of my head. “Okay, then. I’m off. I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
    “Catch you later, hon.” Josh didn’t stop to give me a hug or a kiss.
    I arrived at my parents’ house just as a delivery truck was pulling in. The chairs, tables, dishes, and glasses were there right on time. The