“Do you know when you want to marry?”
“We were thinking about this August.”
“That’s soon! Have you thought about what kind of wedding you would like?”
Sally had thought deeply, over many years, about what kind of wedding she would like. A big, boisterous Irish one that began in her childhood church and through which she got to be the princess. She had told me some of what she was thinking in excruciating detail but she was calibrating how to express this to my mother.
“I was hoping to marry in my church. I have a large family of course would like to invite them.”
My father frowned slightly. He was an Episcopalian and while neither particularly religious nor bigoted, the thought of going to a Catholic church surrounded by her family — ours was quite small — was not appealing.
“What can I do,” Joy interrupted.
“Well, you would join my sisters as a bridesmaid. That is, only if you want to.”
“Of course I want to! What would I wear?” We all laughed.
“What would you like to wear?” Sally asked?
Joy began to describe some bridesmaid dress she had seen on television. I was quickly lost. Sally, though, took it all in stride, asking encouraging questions. My father looked bored.
“That sounds lovely, Joy. I’ll tell you what, we want all the bridesmaids to look great, be comfortable, and also be able to afford their dresses, right?”
Joy had not considered the second two points. She thought a minute and then nodded.
“So if you can take those things into account, I can put you in charge of picking the outfits for the bridesmaids. I need to approve them, though!”
Joy squealed.
“This is going to be so exciting!”
As we discussed our wedding the past couple of weeks, we had only delicately touched on the matter of money. Sally’s vision of a large wedding was expensive and we both knew that her parents couldn’t afford it. Meeting my parents for the first time, it was also not something she felt comfortable bringing up. I decided to bring it up.
“Umm, there is something that we wanted to talk to you about. We’ve obviously never done a wedding, and the cost….”
My father immediately got it and put me out of my pain.
“We would be happy to help pay for the wedding. Within reason, of course.” They knew that they could easily afford this, and he and my mother already were a step ahead thinking about how to angle more leverage for time with their future grandchildren.
Sally broke into a broad smile. She was going to be able to have the wedding about which she had dreamed. I was more relieved than anything else and happy that Sally was happy. As long as I could invite my old buddies and have an open bar, I was happy.
We worked out a plan. Since my mother was too busy with work to be that involved in the planning, Sally and her mother would work out a plan and run it by her. They would then price it out and my parents would work with hers to pay for it. My parents were willing to pay for it all but they wanted to make sure that the Donovans preserved their dignity.
As we cleaned up, Joy found me alone in the kitchen.
“She’s nice!”
“You sound surprised?”
“Why would she agree to marry you? She’s too sweet. You’re going to roll her right over.”
And with that, she bounded upstairs to start searching for dresses on her computer.
We said goodbye to my parents and got into the car. It was cloudy and cold but we felt cozy, warm, and safe in the car.
“I don’t know if your parents liked me.”
“I’m sure that they did.” I really was sure. I thought.
“That was so nice of them. To pick up the cost of the wedding.”
“Yes. It’s great.” I didn’t add that it was almost certainly the result of a fast cost-benefit analysis rather than compassion, generosity, or love.
As we drove she leaned over and kissed my cheek and then, for forty-five minutes, talked about all the planning that was necessary for the wedding-to-be. I kept my mind on my upcoming exam in marketing.
Chapter 17
The next months passed quickly. Nearly every time I saw Sally she had something new to tell me about the planning and wanted my input on some important matter that seemed trivial. I just reveled in her joy. Whatever she wanted to do was fine with me. I saw my job as showing up, looking good, and helping to make her shine. I decided to buy my tuxedo and I expected that I would soon need one for work events anyway.
I needed to crack down on my schoolwork, which also served as a good excuse to bow out of the discussions and occasional fights between Sally and her mother. I finished the semester strong. My parents and Sally’s met at my graduation ceremony. They did not exactly become fast friends, but they were cordial and quickly laid the foundations for a working relationship. I was offered a job at the VC firm I had worked at over the summer and quickly took it, with the condition that I begin in late August after my honeymoon. All the pieces were falling into place.
The wedding took place at a beautiful old church in Far Rockaway. My sister had done well — the bridesmaids’ dresses were beautiful and elegant. They were baby blue and low-cut with a sequined top and a satin band around mid-stomach. They went all the way to the floor. My sister, her sister, and Jane (there was a significant amount of fighting, tension, and disagreement about this choice but Sally felt close to her and wanted her there) all marched down the aisle. There must have been 200 members of Sally’s family there, though I was beginning to think of it more like a tribe. I’m not sure if my family numbered twenty-five.