Father of the Bride

Here Comes the Bride

"Where are they?" Daryn just about shrieked. "Did she or did she not find them?" He was pacing about in tiny little circles in the church vestibule, waiting for his grand entrance.

"Well, you could say that Andrea is right on top of them."

"Then she's coming with them."

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Does the word ménage à trois mean anything to you?"

"That's three words."

"Never mind."

The wedding guests, seated in their pews, were getting restless.

"I can't," Daryn said, staring down at his white satin sling-backs peeking out from beneath his wedding gown.

"Buck up lad, you did great at the rehearsal."

"Rehearsal!"

"Shss," Amanda hissed, glancing out the curtains at the throng.

"This is terrible. In twenty minutes, I'm going to be Mrs. Paris Munchkin."

"You're right. Why don't you keep your maiden name?"

"Because," Daryn hissed back, wrinkling up his pretty made-up little puss. "I'm not a maiden."

"Don't worry you can still wear white."

"Mother," Daryn moaned. "I can't get married. I'm already married to your daughter.

Amanda looking scrumptious in her Christian Dior toasted Daryn with her glass and then took a deep gulp of her Chardonnay.

"I can't. I simply can't." Daryn reached up threatening to rest both veil and tiara from his coiffure.

Amanda grabbed both the man's wrists, easily forcing his hands down to his sides and shoved him rudely into the church wall.

"Listen, Princess!" she snarled. "You'll do exactly what I tell you. I've had it up to here with your sniveling, can't-do attitude. You are about to have the most talked about wedding in the Upper East Side, marry the most eligible bachelor in Manhattan and I might add a nine-day-five-island honeymoon in to-die-for Hawaii. And all I hear is you gripping."

"I'm sorry," Daryn sobbed. "I guess I'm just nervous, that's all."

"Sure, you are. I was too at my first wedding. And I'm a lot tougher than you are. Don't worry it gets easier."

"But Amanda, the honeymoon."

"Honeymoon–sunnymoon. You should get down on your knees and be thankful."

"On my knees is not the position I'm concerned about."

"What?"

Thankfully, the swell of the organ cut off any clarification by Daryn mercifully short.

The wedding went as flawlessly as the rehearsal and was just as fleeting. Riding in the limousine to the reception with Paris beside him Daryn stared once more through the glass at the passing shapes and colors of the city, wondering why that which was most precious seemed to pass so hastily.

It seemed that in the blink of an eye he'd grown middle-aged and that his daughter was born, grew-up and left the nest and now here he was a blushing bride.

Paris squeezed Daryn's hand. "I love you so very much."

"And I you," Daryn said with a pure passion that shamed him.

The reception, the first dance as man and wife, everything flashed by Daryn like a dream.

He danced his cute little butt off, collected reams of checks in his cute little mailbag and Oh-my-God the gifts.