The unofficial bridesmaid

My mom is one of twelve which means a lot of weddings and birthdays and engagement parties. Sometimes I find it hard to remember who was where when. But I remember the first day I met Lorraine as if it were yesterday.

It was my aunt Sophie’s engagement party, she was getting remarried and it was a big deal in the family because she was finally marrying a man worthy of her. I was seated at a table with a couple of aunts and a cousin or two – we never do things small – and was delighted to be sitting beside the one person I had never met before…. Lorraine.

My aunt Fiona and I are like sisters really. We’re only a few years apart and she lived with us for a while when she was dabbling in furthering her education. When she came out, it wasn’t a shock to the family, then again, there isn’t much that would shake our family, we have seen it all. She had dabbled with a couple of women before Lorraine, but I knew deep down that this was it, this was the woman Fiona was going to spend the rest of her life with.

Lorraine was full of chat once the cider started flowing and told me all about herself. She divulged how she had lived in Thailand for a few years and that she had two masters degrees. Now if you were to ask me what they were in, I would draw a blank as I didn’t quite understand what she was saying about them. I knew that she knew how close me and Fiona were and felt that she thought she had to prove to me that she was the right woman for my beloved aunt. As the night began to come to a close, I officially deemed her worthy of Fiona.

It so happened that the puppies, Belle and Daisy, moved in three months before Lorraine did. That was how I knew cupid had drawn his bow and shot his arrow…. they had gotten the puppies together! I cried the night the puppies were revealed not only because I loved dogs, but because they had committed to at least fifteen years of the lives together.

The next day I was asked to help out with the puppies as Lorraine had to run errands and Fiona was at work. That was the biggest night of my life. I sat at the round table, Fiona and Belle in one chair, Lorraine and Daisy in the other and my favourite pizza in front of me, a Margareta with ham and extra cheese. That was the night I was asked to be the girls godmother. My heart swelled and I could feel a kaleidoscope of butterflies soar throughout my entire body. Of course I accepted the generous offer and pulled the four of them in for a group hug. I was officially ‘auntie Sinead’, forever more.

As wedding bells were on the horizon, we were all given jobs to keep the cost of the wedding down. I was on music duty for the ceremony. Because there were no official bridesmaids, Lorraine took me aside at some point in the week coming up to the wedding and asked me to sleep over with Fiona the night before, just to make sure she wasn’t freaking out and going to leave poor Lorraine sitting like a rabbit in headlights at the altar. Naturally I assumed that she was asking me to be my aunts unofficial bridesmaid, and Lorraine agreed.

The morning went off without a hitch. I made scrambled eggs, the only dish I was comfortable in making and ate them with Fiona in bed. I was astonished at how calm she was. If it were me, I would be bricking it, but not our Fiona. She left the house at ten to get her hair done and bring Belle and Daisy to the dog minder. She arrived back radiant! I couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked!

Next, we were off to my granny’s house where everyone assembled for Fiona to get her make up done by my aunt Sophie and then when it was time, she put on her dress. As she descended the stairs, I gasped, as did we all! She looked radiant. We all cried as she stood on the stairs and she warned us against it because and I quote ‘if you cry, I’ll cry and I don’t want my make up to run!’ So naturally we all tried to hold back the tears. I took the most beautiful picture of the youngest six girls on the stairs with her, all smiling and laughing. It’s a precious photo.

When we finally made it off the stairs to the garden for some pictures, my cousin, who was supposed to be the photographer for the day, arrived late and without shots of poor Lorraine getting ready with her family. Fiona was upset, the first time I had seen her upset all day. She was concerned that the fact that my cousin, who was only a teenager at the time, was late to us, could have been even later had he snapped a few shots of Lorraine getting ready, but bit her tongue and swallowed back her tears. I think I was the one who was taking more pictures than the resident photographer Sam. He was more interested in chatting to the other cousins than he was doing the one job he was given, taking photographs of the bride.

My own brother Kevin, was only a couple of weeks after surgery for his hip. A pedal cyclist knocked him down over a year before and he was given the choice of physio or surgery. As he was a dancer, he tried physio first but ultimately needed the surgery. He was in agony on the back deck in my granny’s house as we took the photos, but never showed it. He just leaned into his crutches with all his might and grinned and bared it.

When it was time for our pictures with the blushing bride, Kevin had to surrender his crutches and smile through the pain for the posterity of the photographs.

We heard a car beeping out the front. It wasn’t the same sound as a car however, it was different. We all went out to investigate and there she was…. Lorraine in a converted VW camper van. She looked radiant and the second Fiona saw her, the water works started. Luckily my aunt was there to touch up and fix whatever ran. The pictures we got of the brides and their mothers on either side in front of the campervan were priceless. One actually sits on their fireplace right now.

Everyone who was there were in awe of the campervan, but not me, my focus was of the two weeping brides and their mothers. Both dresses were exquisite. They looked like two princesses. I, of course was snapping away as I saw Sam still mingling in the crowd that had gathered outside my granny’s house.

Once the campervan left the house it was all hands-on deck to high tail it to the destination the pair had chosen to get married in. It wasn’t far from my granny’s, maybe twenty minutes. The day was hot, the air humid. I could feel the prickling on my skin that you get when you are sun burnt. I said this to my mother on the way to the venue but she told me it was all in my head….and I believed her reluctantly.

The ceremony was supposed to be at four in a building about seven doors down from the hotel that was overlooking the sea. As me and Kevin were on music duty, we had to make sure we were the first ones into that room to set up. Poor Kevin was in agony from the short drive and at 3:30 the building was still locked. I left Kevin with all of the paraphernalia we needed outside whilst I went looking for the owner of the hotel to see it, he could open the building. He rang the building manager and told me she would be there in a few minutes. 3:55 came and everyone was starting to make their way up from the hotel where they had all gotten some ice-cold drinks. Me and Kevin looked at each other and I longed for an ice cube to be placed down my back because I was so hot. 3:59 came, and with it the woman who was performing the ceremony. 4:00, we finally gained access to the building. I had stern words with the man who opened it up.

‘But the wedding isn’t until four!’ he said.

‘That means it is to begin at four, not being opened at four!’ I said to him, ‘look around, all these people should be getting ready to see the most important day in these brides lives and now its all delayed and its all down to you!’ I pointed at him, to which he shrugged.

The woman who was performing the ceremony had begun to set up when I walked through the door and saw a sea of steps, Kevin stuck on the third. I grabbed the bag from his shoulder and helped him up the rest of the way. He was sweating buckets when we got to the final step, his hip killing him. No one had told us the venue was up a flight of stairs!

I let Kevin sit for a minute and ran to the back of the room to where the speaker system was. I began to set up and hit a snag. I couldn’t make out which cable went where.

‘That one goes there!’ I jumped out of my skin as Kevin pushed me aside and did his thing.

Because we were stuck in the back doing the music, I never got to see the ceremony, I only heard it. Maybe because I’m a hopeless romantic, or maybe because it was Fiona who was saying ‘I do’, either way I was a blubbering mess. I had to try to choke down the sobbing so I could hear the wedding, but it was hard.

After everyone had left, the ceremony over, we had to gather our equipment and make our way to the hotel. My mother asked me why I was crying?

‘It was just…just so beautiful!’ and I sobbed some more.

Before the meal were the pictures, of which I took many:

• The brides on their own.
• The brides with their mothers.
• The brides with their siblings (both sides)
  
  • That one was hard as eight of Fiona’s siblings had attended and they all had to squeeze in for the shot.
• The cousins
  
  • This one was even harder as there were over twenty of us there and although I didn’t take that one, because I was in it, my mom had to back away a fair bit to fit us all in.

It wasn’t until then that my mother believed me about getting sunburnt. She noticed I was red in the face.

‘I tried to tell you before!’ I said to her.

‘I’m sorry love, we’ll get you some after sun!’

The night was wonderful. The food was delicious, the band were on point and the DJ was awesome. It was a fun night had by all.

The night reflected into the next day when there was a barbeque for those to nurse their hangovers with before they set sail and went home. As I personally don’t drink it wasn’t an issue for me, but I was so red in the face and the sun burn was so sore that my mother ventured out to see if she could find a chemist that was open to buy after sun. She came back triumphant, one with aloe vera no less!

As everyone was leaving, the same old faithful’s the only ones left, we moved into the bar as it was beginning to become chilly.

I sat beside Fiona, ‘Was it worth it?’ I asked her.

She smiled and I saw the glint in her eye every time she glanced in the direction of her new bride. That was the only confirmation I needed.