Mother of the Bride

Weddings are supposed to invoke excitement. They are supposed to build anticipation, until we are so overwhelmed with emotion that we no longer think rationally; we just write checks! Obviously, this is written from a fathers perspective. I enjoyed "Father of the Bride". Of course I was on the outside looking in. Let me say, this is not an inside that you want any part of. I have met the enemy and they are not mine. Two daughters, a wife and the grooms mother and sister. They constitute a formidable army. They have trained a lifetime to participate in the big show and they have been taught that the guy with the check book is the enemy. This was the beginning of my end. Like terrorist they are prepared to recognize, respond, destroy and my picture was nailed to the door.

Women all posess this Martha Stewart Mentality that is fed and nurtured from the time they are little girls. It lies in wait, scheming, dreaming and giving daily birth to ideas about a party, twenty five years down the road. It is a monster, capable of devouring bank balances in a single sitting. Words like budget, discount, expensive,practical and afford are met with contempt. The lips which utter such profanity are excluded from planning sessions and seriously run the risk of a wrath to terrible to describe.

My naivete crumbled yesterday, along with the unrealistic hopes of retirement, as early, pre nuptial discussions filled the air of my once happy and stable home. The women were all giddy, weaving ruin from the fabric of dreams. Stardust spilled from their exhuberance as they strategically laid the groundwork for my financial demise. Although absorbed with solitude, I could not ecape the increasing chatter. I captured little bits of intel inbetween commercials and the lure of a Saturday nap. The phrases, wedding pictures and $7500 woke me from my stupor. I found peace in assuming that such phrases were in reference to a recent celebrity wedding and counted my blessing. After all, my wedding pictures consisted of a half dozen snap shots, tucked away in boxes where such memoir belongs. It didn't take much longer,however, before Einstein discovered that the celebrity wedding being discussed was my daughters. In the twinkling of an eye my daughter had become Princess Diana. I was, apparently, married to Queen Elizebeth and she was accompanied by an entourage of wedding planners for the rich and famous.

This, mind you, is not the horrified exaggeration of a panicking father, suddendly confronted with a deficit equal to some small country. This was happening in a humble, twenty one hundred, square foot estate of the not so rich and famous.

Believing that I was included in the preliminary deliberations, I made the mistake of offering a suggestion that would have saved us from considerable financial burden. I was instantly enlightend that there was no us. The ensuing looks which confronted me, conveyed everything from castration to murder. They were five fold, in perfect unison and unmistakeable in unanamous contempt. At the very least chastity loomed large on my horizon.

As a man, I am comfortable in my own skin. It is an armor entrusted to me since birth. It equips me to stand my ground upon the battlefield of marriage. To withstand and repel the arrows of emotion and advance the cause of pragmatism. Sadly, I have encountered an enemy, who could eat a sherman tank on her way to the church. She will leap buildings in a single bound and arrange flowers along the way. She is unmovable, inpenetrable and invincible in her march against the evil forces that would impede the dream. She will count the seatings, choose the settings and select flat ware while disemboweling obstacles along the way. She needs no sleep, does not eat and will not stop to pee until she hears the pipes of the wedding march. She is built for a single cause, designed for a single day, prepared from birth for this moment. She is magic, she is wonder, she is lightning, she is thunder. She is the perfect war machine. She is the mother of the bride.