Alpharetta - Saturday, The Weddidng

Sorry, blogfan(s), for my lack of diligence in chronicling this trip. It’s been a busy few days.

We came to Alpharetta not only to attend Andrea’s wedding, but also to help her parents with the preparations for the wedding. Our part was to make the floral centerpieces for the reception tables, and to help run errands. Since the wedding was to happen at 10:30 Saturday morning, the decorating needed to be finished by Friday night.

Our first business on Thursday was to get our bearings and make sure that our supplies were in order. Just after breakfast, we drove to Sandy Springs to the florist shop to make sure our flowers had arrived in good condition. (Many thanks to Charley Brown - seriously, that’s her name - of Flowers of Sandy Springs for ordering the flowers for me, and for giving me workspace to make the bride’s bouquet.) We then drove back to Alpharetta to find the Country Club of the South, where the wedding was to be held.

Let me pause here to complain about the asinine system of street naming in Alpharetta and Roswell. If we drove 100 miles in our errands around town, at least 50 of those miles were U-turns and loop-backs. You see, street names in this area are apt to change every few blocks. I suspect that the name changes occur at boundary lines that no longer exist or have been obscured by urban growth. Or, hell, maybe they just thought up a bunch of good names and wanted to use them all. Whatever the reason for the name changes, they wreak havoc for the unsuspecting motorist.

While I’m at it, let me also complain about the traffic in these two little towns. Gawd, Almighty, it’s bad. No matter where you go, no matter what time of day it is, every street is snarled with cars. Don’t these people have jobs? (They must, for the streets are crowded with Mercedes, BMWs, and Volvos.) Don’t they stop for dinner? Don’t they sleep? To make matters worse, while we were in town, Alpharetta was holding its annual “A Taste of Alpharetta” street fair, where local restaurants offered little samples of their best dishes. Near the center of town, streets were blocked off so that the vendors could set up their booths. The old phrase “you can’t get there from here” sprang to mind many times during our visit.

Thursday afternoon, we went by the bride’s parents’ home to load up things to take to the country club the next day. That night, we had a nice, quiet dinner, and went to back to our hotel to rest. Early Friday morning, we hit the ground running. First, we went to the country club to unload the things we’d picked up on Thursday afternoon, and then we drove to Sandy Springs so that I could make the bridal bouquet and pick up the fresh flowers for the centerpieces. By noon, we were back at the country club, unloading buckets of flowers. We went straight to work on centerpieces for 20 tables. By 5 p.m., we’d finished the centerpieces and were able to join the wedding party for cocktails and the rehearsal dinner. There was a little more decorating left to do, so after dinner we went back to the country club and started on the decorations on the lawn, where the ceremony was to take place. About 8:30 p.m., we heard thunder, but kept working. About 9 p.m., lightning was flashing all around us, and occasional drops of rain were beginning to fall. We packed up our supplies and went inside, hoping that it would not rain that night, or that if it did rain, it would not wash away our flowers. We crawled into bed at our hotel near midnight.

Saturday morning, we were back at the country club by 8:30. To our delight, the sun was shining, and the flowers we had set up on the lawn were still in place.

The wedding was beautiful. The groom looked handsome, the bride was gorgeous. The groom’s grandmother performed the ceremony. She did a fabulous job, and when her voice quivered with emotion, it only made the ceremony more touching. There were tears and smiles all around.

The reception was a blast. Good food, good music, good company.

At last, the bride and groom made their escape in a specially-decorated golf cart.

When the last guest had gone, the bride’s mother and I went straight to the bar. Elizabeth told the bartender, “I need something to drink, and I can’t decide between coffee and something stronger.”

“Are you the florist?” he asked.

“No, this is the florist,” she said, pointing at me. “I’m the mother of the bride.”

“In that case,” he exclaimed, “I recommend something stronger!” He poured two shots of tequila and handed one to each of us. “Can you ladies handle that?”

Elizabeth and I exchanged knowing looks.. “Susan introduced me to tequila at a Christmas party at her house,” she told the bartender. “The bride was conceived that very night!”

We knocked back the shots and collapsed onto lounge chairs as our wonderful husbands began taking down decorations and loading them into our cars.

Back at Elizabeth’s house, a cool breeze was blowing across the patio. A few friends and neighbors came by with snacks and drinks to help Elizabeth and Bill wind down. When a huge storm cloud moved in and dumped rain and hail on our party, we simply grabbed our chairs and moved to the garage.