The Wedding

I love weddings! Michael and Twyla invited Ella and Virginia to be flower girls in their wedding, so we had all the more reason to anticipate their big day. I knew Ella would be a dutiful, attentive flower girl who would happily scatter petals and all the while imagine herself as a princess bride. Virginia, however, is a bit of a loose canon and while I didn't want her to feel left out, I knew that her role in the ceremony would be less determined by her duties than it would be by her mood. Luckily, she was in a good mood. The girls walked the aisle, slowly but in sync, and Ella scattered her petals. Virginia managed only to plop a handful of petals on the floor before she reached the end of the aisle, but she made it to the end without falling, screaming, or running away. I'm not exactly sure where the girls were supposed to end up (there was no rehearsal), but they took their place right next to the minister and remained there for the whole of the ceremony. Nobody stopped them. I kept my eye on Virginia and held my breath throughout most of the ceremony. She was a bit too skittish for her own good. With her eyes darting from one direction to the next and a devilish grin upon her face, she would swing her flower basket in the air, then lean on her sister, all the while trying to elicit a giggle of camaraderie. Luckily, Ella and Eiley had better control of themselves, and Virginia never got the encouragement she was looking for. Michael and Twyla said "I do" and the ceremony ended without a hitch. The girls and Jude danced the night away, and nobody fell, except for Daniel, who slipped on a rose petal and splashed beer all over himself. He recovered nicely and went about the evening undaunted.