In spite of the fact I had not slept much the night before, I awoke the next morning with excitement bringing me quickly and easily from my bed. Julie still slept, one hand tucked beneath her pretty face. She looked more like a beautiful child than an attractive young woman, still oblivious to the world and all the duties of this important day.
I tiptoed about as I dressed and left the room. The wedding ceremony had been set for eleven o’clock. Following that would be the reception dinner with family and close friends. Mary, bless her heart, had insisted she would be responsible for that and had engaged some caterers to help her with the preparations and serving.
After the reception, we would open the wedding gifts and spend some time with family and friends before boarding the four o’clock train for Banff.
Our honeymoon would not be nearly as long as we had once planned it. Four days in the beautiful mountains did not seem nearly enough. We would not travel leisurely. We would not be taking a cabin in some remote area where we could hike and climb and just rest and relax in the grandeur of those magnificent mountains. Instead, we would take the train; Wynn had booked a room at the hotel, and from there we would make our little excursions into privacy.
The day we would be returning from Banff would be the day before we headed north, so all of our time then would be taken with last-minute preparations and final packing.
My friends from Pine Springs had been so disappointed we would not have time to visit them before leaving. They had planned a community shower to follow our wedding, if it had occurred in September as originally planned.
“Ve can’t let you yust go off—like dat,” wailed Anna. “Ve need to gif you our vishes, too!”
“Can’t you come to the wedding?” I pleaded over the sputtering lines of the telephone system.
“Ve’ll try. Ve’ll try so hard. Da little ones vould hurt so to miss,” said Anna. “Dey haf talked ’bout not’ing else for veeks.”
“Perhaps Phillip would have room to bring you,” I suggested. But I was afraid Phillip’s car might be full.
“Ve’ll see,” promised Anna. “Ve’ll see.”
But I shoved all of that from my mind and tried to concentrate instead on what needed to be done in the few brief hours before my wedding.
Mary, already in the kitchen, motioned me to a chair beside her and nodded her head toward the coffeepot on the back of the stove.
“Pour yourself a cup, Beth, and join me. Always best to organize one’s thoughts before plowing on ahead. Saves time that way.”
I agreed and went for a cup. The next several minutes were spent “organizing.”
Mary held a pencil in her slim fingers and jotted down as we discussed.
“The flowers!” she squealed suddenly. “Beth, did you order the flowers?”
My hand shot to my forehead. I had not. I had thought of it a number of times but never did get it done.
Mary looked nervous. “What ever will we do?” she asked me, not nearly as composed as when we began.
For a moment I was stunned; then suddenly I remembered those beautiful roses growing in Mary’s backyard.
“Do you mind sharing your roses?”
“My roses?”
“The ones out back. They are beautiful. I noticed them a few days ago. They would work—”
“But we have no one to arrange them,” Mary interrupted me.
“You can arrange them. You do a beautiful job. I’d like two bouquets—one on each side of the altar.”
“But your bridal bouquet—”
“I’ll carry roses, too.”
“But—” Mary was going to protest again.
“I’ll just carry a loose bouquet. Just a few long-stemmed flowers. They’ll be beautiful.”
“They are all thorns,” Mary argued.
“We’ll cut the thorns off. Matthew or William will be glad to do that.”
Mary smiled. Then she nodded her head and took another swallow of coffee.
“So we have the flowers settled. Where do we go from here?”
We went over everything again. My dress was ready. Julie was to stand beside me. Her dress would need pressing after its long train ride, but Julie would take care of that. The dresses were all ready for Sarah and Kathleen. The cake had been done by a lady friend of Mary’s. It was simpler than it would have been had she been given more time; but I was finding more and more beauty in simplicity. Phillip, Wynn’s brother, was to stand up with Wynn; and Phillip, Jr., was to bear the rings.
“We have no pillow for the rings!” I cried suddenly when we came to that item.
“That’s no problem,” a soft voice said behind me. “I’ve been feeling bad that I have had nothing to do with getting ready for my daughter’s wedding. Just give me some pretty scraps and I’ll have a pillow in no time.”
It was Mother. I jumped from my chair to hug her. She held me for a moment.
“Do you have any suitable pieces?” she asked at last.
“I have some nice bits left from my wedding dress.”
“That will do just fine. And lace?”
“I’ve some of that, too, though I’m not sure it’s enough.”
Mary had been pouring another cup of coffee. She set it on the table and pulled up another chair for Mother.
“I’ve lots of ribbon and lace,” she assured us. “I sew most of the girls’ things, and they always insist upon ‘fancies’ on all of their dresses.”
We drank our coffee and continued to cover all the details of the coming wedding. Here and there we had to improvise and make other arrangements. For some reason, it did not panic me. The “organized Elizabeth” of old would have been horrified to do up a wedding so—so haphazardly. Instead, I went through the activities of the morning in a comfortable daze. In just a few short hours, all the fussing would be behind me; and I would be Mrs. Wynn Delaney.