Column 116 We Loved Her First by Kathy Rhodes

We Loved Her First
Musings of an Aunt

Kathy Rhodes

The two family dogs were wearing big white tulle bows when we arrived at my sister’s Victorian home in Midtown Memphis Saturday at noon. Inside the white picket fence, Piddypat and Zoe were running circles against a lush background display of my sister’s master gardening talents. She was outside with them, and my niece sat in a wicker chair in pink jersey pants on the front porch of the only home she has ever known, on this, her last day to live in that old blue house with gingerbread trim. “Hi, Aunt Kathy,” she said, and when I hugged her and felt her hair against my cheek, I thought I’d lose it, but I didn’t.

Today finally got here. We’d anticipated it for a year and a half. It makes my head whirl to think of all the planning that preceded this one day. My sister kept us posted all the way by sending regular e-mail updates with the latest scoop.

From July 6, 2006, eleven months ago: The church is booked. The rehearsal time is booked. The reception hall is booked at the ballroom of the University of Memphis Holiday Inn. We have the photographer and florist. Down payments to both done. She's picked out the invitations. She's decided on bridesmaids’ dresses. Sage green with an ecru sash.

THE DRESS. This was the big deal. They drove to every city in the South to find just the right one. “We have tried on so many gowns,” my sister said. “She can just look at them and say no. We've been through over 25 wedding magazines, pulling out pictures of dresses. I’ve given her till August 31.” Finally, the long-awaited e-mail: “We've got the dress!”

Paloma Blanca traditional bridal gown made of natural colored silk Dupioni with a white French Alencon lace bodice and a drop waist style. The back of the bodice has silk-covered buttons. It has a full A-line skirt with inverted pleats in the front and back. The back of the gown has a full chapel length train.

THE VEIL. It was the same cathedral length veil, bordered with lace, that I wore in 1970, the same one my sister wore in 1975. It was going around one more time, whitened from yellowing across the years, clean, pure, with a new pearl and crystal comb attached to the veil.

THE SHOES. “Get something different,” my sister told her daughter. “Something that is you.” So they ordered blue shoes with bows on them and tall, thin heels. “They should be white!” my mother shrieked.

FILLING IN THE BLANKS.

Something old,
Her veil (thirty-seven years old)

Something new,
Her dress (brand new!)

Something borrowed,
A handkerchief that belonged to her grandfather, my father

Something blue,
Her shoes, of course!

We walked into the foyer carrying a gift wrapped in shiny paper with cream roses. To the right, the living room was blocked off to keep the dogs out, and there, hanging on a makeshift rack, filling the space between the fireplace and the couch was the dress. Pure creamy silk draped across the floor. And the veil, crisp and flowing, a fresh start with an updated headpiece. And in an open suitcase on the couch, the blue shoes.

The rest of the family arrived and all thirteen of us, as well as Piddypat, Zoe, and my cocker Chaeli, shared a take-out lunch of fried catfish, hushpuppies, and French fries from Soul Food in Cooper Young, and even as we ate, my sister kept working as she had for the past 600 days, clipping roses and hydrangeas to scatter their petals on tables in the foyer of the church and packing up the last of her signs for the reception and arranging big bins in the living room with supplies for the ballroom. She was a machine, unstoppable, that woman. She held up a sign with a poem I’d prepared for her a few days earlier and sent by e-mail. It was printed on ecru paper, and she’d made cute little origami holders from the same sage green flower pattern as the invitations.

“How did you figure that out?”

“Martha Stewart, of course.”

The sign was for the Guest Book table. The Guest Book was a scrapbook of the bride and groom’s lives. She’d spent six months gathering pictures of beginnings—their baby years and sports and cheerleading and flute lessons and piano lessons, and then their blendings—first date and dances and engagement and showers. “Even though I have someone standing there to give directions, I want a sign to put on the table,” she’d said. “Help! I can't think of a good way to word this. I've changed it 50 times.” The poem had to be good. “I’m calling in some help,” I said. “The president of the Tennessee Writers Alliance, another board member of the TWA, and an award-winning songwriter.” We wrote the poem, and I designed a sign and put a sage green F watermark on it, the initial of the new couple’s last name.

You’ve watched them grow
From kids at play.
You watched them take
Sacred vows today.

You’ve shared their lives,
Now take a look,
Then write your name
In their wedding book.

*****

At three we met in the ballroom to orchestrate some special effects for the reception. My sister had pulled us all in. She'd sent us a written Job List. She made sure we all had a part. Lee and Katie and Sally—“set up the Guest Book Table in the foyer with book, white pen, sign with poem and stand, and two baskets of matches for favors; put ecru menu cards in green origami stands on the dining tables.” Todd and Corey—“put a white wedding camera on each table; put green napkins on the bride’s cake table, ecru napkins on the groom’s cake table, set out the knife set and goblets and Willow Tree statue; set out three framed photographs of the bride and groom.” Danny and Charlie—“make sure there’s a skirted table for the deejay and make sure there are four kinds of wine set out and cocktail napkins for the guests.” Kathy and Nicole—“set up the Favor Table; there are clear glass bowls and one big green bowl for the wrapped candy and smaller square glass containers for stick candy, with silver scoops for each container; set out the white basket of engraved white paper favor holders for guests to scoop candy into.”

We had fun with our little jobs, then the florist came, the cakes were delivered, and the staff prepared the serving tables for a sit-down dinner.

This was my only wedding to ever have a part in. I have sons. On my side of the family, the bride is the only girl and the fourth and last grandchild.

*****

We arrived at the church and went first to see the bride in her dressing room. She was sitting on a wooden chair with her dress undone down the back and hanging loose and her bare legs with bare feet slung out in front of her, her dress hiked up to her knees.

“I’m hot,” she said.

She was radiant. She was beautiful. She was perfect. Her dress, cream in color, blended with her strawberry blond hair pulled back in curls and her complexion, peaches and cream.

I remembered when she used to play dress-up as a little girl—all the fancy, glittery gowns her grandmother made for her, the hats and purses and high heels. This time, it was for real.

*****

At the beginning of the 6 PM ceremony at First Baptist, after the song “Because” and before the seating of the grandmothers, there was the Lighting of the Memory Candles for deceased or disabled grandparents. There were four tall white candles at the front of the sanctuary, and one was for the bride’s maternal grandfather, my father. I had the honor of lighting it. I started down the long aisle between my sons, my arms linked in theirs, and as I cleared the balcony, I looked up at the majestic ceiling and with misty eyes whispered, “Dad, I know you’re here.”

He would have been so proud because everything was done right, perfect, by the book, traditional, with taste and elegance and grace and love, and that’s what he was all about.

After the lighting, I was seated on the second row with my husband, daughter-in-law, and sons, and my mother was seated beside me. Then my sister was escorted down the aisle and seated at the end of our row. I’d planned on crying during the bridal march when my niece walked down the aisle on the arm of her father—that special man who came into our family thirty-two years ago. He had lots of thick curly hair back then. But no, I did not. I cried when my sister walked down the aisle. I looked back because I wanted to watch her in the most special moment of her lifetime, and there she came. That woman, in her long, silvery, shiny lavender dress, jewelry to match, and high silver heels. That woman, who worked so hard for so long, a master at pulling together all the details. That woman, who scheduled and arranged and handed out orders after years of telling me I should have been an army sergeant, and she was walking down that aisle in command of it all. That woman, who drew us all in to take part in such a joyous and memorable occasion. The last time we were all together was for a funeral.

The bride made her royal entrance and wrapped in pure shining silk, took her grand walk to the altar, where her daddy gave her away. I heard there were tears in the foyer beforehand. And they weren’t the bride’s.

The bride’s bouquet was a clutch of colorful flowers, elegantly tied with one of her grandfather’s old handkerchiefs (hand-che-kefs, Dad called them), engraved with H, for Hardy, or Hayley. There were some tears of sentiment over that, too.

Afterwards, the crowd gathered at the columned entrance and along the sidewalk, each person with a tiny white bottle of bubbles, bells tied to the top with a white satin ribbon, and we showered the new couple with bubbles that swirled through the air, catching the evening sunlight, a rainbow in each one, drifting up and away as the bride and groom left in their limousine.

*****

The first dance was announced for the bride and groom—their first dance as a married couple.

Look at the two of you dancing that way,
Lost in the moment and each other’s face,
So much in love you’re alone in this place
Like there’s nobody else in the world.

The second dance was for the bride and her daddy, and the song was Heartland’s “I Loved Her First.”

I was enough for her not long ago,
I was her number one,
She told me so.
And she still means the world to me,
Just so you know,
So be careful when you hold my girl.
Time changes everything,
Life must go on,
And I’m not gonna stand in your way.

But I loved her first and I held her first,
And a place in my heart will always be hers.
From the first breath she breathed,
When she first smiled at me,
I knew the love of a father runs deep.
And I prayed that she’d find you some day.
But it’s still hard to give her away.
I loved her first.

And the evening was a whirlwind of dancing and dining and laughter and trying to consume the fact that this little girl is all grown up and married and beginning a new life. And then the music revved up and the dance floor was filled with the young—a few guys, but mostly the bride—a social butterfly, her diva self in full display—in her silk, with her girlfriends and her Phi Mu sisters, singing and moving and waving their arms and having a ball.

“I don’t think she’ll be frying eggs for anybody in the morning,” I told my sister, and we laughed . . . and held on to the little girl for just another elusive moment.

And then she made her grand exit on the arm of her husband, and she was gone. And so it was, on that June night, the little girl of the family got married.

Hayley and Adam