As a man thinketh...

This posting is dear to my heart - I think it is the first of several Mom wrote re: Whitney  & Chad's 04/15/00 wedding.  deev   04/01/14

...can be very different from how a woman thinketh.  Consider my son

Peter.

Peter called up today to make an incredible offer to the Lockhart

womenfolk:  he would happily treat us to a complete wedding outfit – from shoes and stockings to coat and hat, if we wished - for his daughter, Whitney's, BIG DAY.

Incredible generosity.  Just one problem.  The wedding is two weeks from away.  

Ladies, how many of you would be two weeks away from an important wedding and not already know hat you are wearing and what you are wearing with what you are wearing?  (Men, can you follow?)

If I were to take Peter up on his generous offer, it would mean having to do some intensive shopping over the next twelve days.  Men can go into their equivalent of Jules Pilch Menswear and can pick out a top quality suit, shoes, socks, briefs, T-shirts, ties. 

This woman approaches putting together an outfit differently.   

Due to a mastectomy and my general physical decreptitude at this point, my foundation garments come from a specialty store in Jenkintown.   

My orthopedic dress shoes have to be special ordered from Faherty's and take closer to 2 months than 2 weeks to arrive.   

If I was planning on wearing a dress other than what already hangs in my closet, it would probably be made to order, which means finding the pattern, fabric and seamstress with enough time to get it done in less than two weeks.

As it is, the outfits I will wear to the rehearsal dinner, the wedding and the post-wedding day brunch wait patiently in my closet for me to pack up for our short jaunt to the Great Valley (Fraser, PA) Sheraton.  I like them and they suit me.  

Elsa has had her outfit pressed and ready to go since December, with her jewelry in a velvet pouch pinned to the dress. 

Yes, I will wear my somewhat battered clodhoppers, with knee highs instead  of stockings.   

Yes, I may look more like Mammy Yokum than Hope Montgomery Scott,  since health has left my dentures all catty-whompus so they do not fit any more and there is no guarantee my new ones will be done in time.  (they were – elm)   

But with a bride as radiant as  Whitney, a groom as happy as Chad, and a dad as proud of Peter, who is going to notice anyway?

Peter's thoughtfulness about my wardrobe and his undiminished belief in the wonders his Mom can pull off leaves me with a smiling face and heart.

I hope today is as beautiful wherever you are as this Pennsylvania spring day is here.  Elsa is taking me to lunch at our beloved Pat's Colonial Kitchen, my first full-scale social outing (not counting a couple March trips to B&N) in months.  The trees along Newtown's State Street should be in full flower. I am all a-twitter in anticipation.

Love to all - The Grandmother of the Bride