Mother of the Bride #2

So what if my daughter said to me, “Mom, I just want to get married at City Hall and then all go out to a restaurant in the City (that’s what Northern California natives call San Francisco, like it was the only one of type).” Well not too far away from my little suburban enclave is the San Francisco City Hall. Which is beautiful. If you saw the movie “Milk”, you saw Sean Penn running up and down the its stairs.

Now if my daughter said to me she just wanted to get married at City Hall, it’s quite possible that she might look at me in that way daughters who have been your child for a long time do, and say, “Mom (the word is drawn out here, almost drawled, and inflected upwards at the end, perhaps even with a little riff a la American Idol), how about since I am saving you so much money I get to have whatever wedding dress I want?” After all I have always told my daughter that she is my replacement for the Barbie doll my parents wouldn’t let me have because they were intellectual Democrats. So this doesn’t come out of nowhere. Yeah, I might just say yes.

Then let’s say she might continue, “Mom, and since I am saving you so much money how about I can have some diamonds by the yard?” (This is unlikely. She isn’t too much about luxury per se. This is more me talking. I have not yet recovered from my upbringing.) I still might say yes. And then I might go hog-wild and throw High WASP principles of keep-displays-of-wealth to a minimum, and rent her a white Jaguar to get the restaurant just because I think she would look so beautiful. Should all of those things occur, this is what we would get.