Part 10: The Bride Carried a Leatherman

It was March 18th, 2000.

I woke up happy and refreshed after my good nights sleep in my own bed. All I could think of was "I am getting married today!" I bounded out of bed, got dressed and took my dog out for her walk. I sat on the small hill in the neighborhood park looking at the bright blue sky with not a cloud in it. Feeling the sun hit my cheeks.

It was going to be a beautiful day.

I walked home cheery, took a shower and called Cullen. The friend of my husband's who was going to take care of our dog, Winny, for the day. I had to drop her off before I went to get my hair done, after which everyone would start arriving at my house to get ready and pack the last minute things up to haul back up the mountain.

I called Cullen and the phone rang.

And rang.

He had PROMISED he would be there! Bridezilla set in. What would I do with my dog?

I picked up the phone again and called my fiance (noting it would be the last day I would be saying fiance). It was more than obvious that the crowd at the condo at Tahoe were not waking as chipper as I had. Oh, they weren't even waking.

My fiance slowly and groggily comes to the phone. I started crying about our dog and HIS friend not being home to take her.

AB was functioning about 3 minutes behind me with his thought process. "What?" he said.

I was steamed. My dogsitter was not home as agreed, my fiance was hung over and my problems were just beginning I feared.

I was angry. About a half hour later AB called, still feeling the pain, but told me that Cullen was now home and I could take Winny over. Of course then I wondered if I WANTED to take Winny to someone so irresponsible.

Then sanity set in.

Of course what I didn't mention was that during this half hour my grandmother had also called.

"We don't have rooms for tonight?" she tells me.

"What?" I asked.

"We don't have rooms," she said again.

"Yes you do," I said.

"No we don't," she said. "I called the Hyatt and they don't have reservations down for any of us, you included."

See here was the deal with the Hyatt. My great uncle was head of security there. Our rooms, mine and AB's and my grandmother's and my cousins, were gratis. Free.

I briefly tried to explain this to her, "knowing Chucky, we aren't in the official registration system," I told her.

She cut in, "we have to be, we need rooms, you need to call them."

I will never forget this moment until the day I die. It is probably only the second time I have really ticked my grandmother off. First time at Disneyland when I told her to back off me on what I was spending MY money on. Her tongue turned to a snakes then and spit venom about my being an ungrateful brat.

I said to her, "No, you need to calm down and call Chucky. I need to go get my hair done and deal with my dog".

I knew that the Hyatt had rooms and no way were they turning away a bride and groom showing up. Worst case it went on my already bulging credit card.

"You don't even care about me," she said. Then she hung up on me.

I had to stuff this to the back of my head at that time. I couldn't deal with my drama queen, center of attention hog grandmother. I knew exactly what was wrong, she wanted to be the mother of the bride. And she wasn't.

I called my mom and downloaded all this on her and she did exactly what the mother of the bride was supposed to do, "you go get your hair done, we will deal with Winny if need be, and I will deal with your grandmother".

She dealt with her as best as possible while I was getting my hair done. My grandmother was bawling. My mom's cousin comforting her with a scornful eye towards me and probably my mom too.

I went to Robert, my stylist in Reno, who did my hair for me. I went home and put my make up on. Then my mom, sister, brother in law and stepdad arrived. We all got loaded into the car.

As we were driving out of town it dawned on me that I was starved. Despite my need to get up to the lake and get the show on the road, I needed food. A quick stop at Subway and then we were on our way.

We arrived at the little hotel that was housing a large portion of our guests, directly and conveniently across the street from the reception hall. I went to my mom's room and put my dress on. Afterwards people popped in and out to check on me. My mom came in and helped me go to the bathroom before we got in the car to go get pictures done. I had my little satiny matching purse (that was so not me, but necessary) and was ready to go.

We were walking down the hotel room steps when my mom yells, "hold on you have a thread".

"Just a minute," I replied, "I have my Leatherman in my purse"

That became the joke of the day, The Bride Carried a Leatherman.

We arrived about 40 minutes later at the church. I looked over at my fiance and he walked to the door of the car. I remember feeling shy. I had never been shy with AB before. But here I sat in my parent's rental car in a big wedding dress, face made up, hair done up and I felt shy.

He showed my the bouquets that our florist had done. We wanted a few flowers, but not many. My bouquet with irises was gorgeous. I loved it and it was so me. I couldn't think of what to say other than, "I love the flowers".

We all convened at a private beach (reserved by our fantastic photographer) on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe for pictures. I had this gorgeous long train that was flowing over weeds and beach debris to get to the beach for the perfect pictures. I didn't care.

I was right earlier, it was a gorgeous day. It was 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We had picked the perfect day.

Our photographer was worth every penny we paid him. I knew our pictures were going to be fabulous.

We were packing up to head back up to the church. The photographer told us all to stop. He pulled out his equipment again for one last shot... to be continued.