NO BEIGE ON US



There was a time when mothers of the bride and groom were required to wear beige lace, just in case they weren’t already feeling invisible. Who made up this rule?
I disappear in beige. It’s fine in carpets but not on me. If you’re a smashing redhead you can wear it. But I wanted something a little more exciting. At my first daughter’s wedding two years ago, I wore a white pantsuit. It was her idea. We had just all seen “Something’s Gotta Give” and she thought I should try to pull off Diane Keaton look. I didn’t exactly, but you can tell I'm there in the wedding photos.
For my second daughter’s wedding this month I wanted to be a stand-out. I scored at an Eileen Fisher store in San Francisco, accompanied by one of my oldest friends and college roommate, who actually does look good in beige because she still has red hair. Her job was not to choose a color but to convince me to spend a bunch of money on something hip and glamorous. I’m a Northern Californian who doesn’t dress up a lot. I’m most comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt.
With the assistance of Karen and a frank and helpful clerk and the woman in the next dressing room who ended up volunteering her advice, having twice been the mother of the bride, I walked out with a silvery silk fitted jacket and a matching tank top and taupe flowing pants that fit very nicely over the hips.
The mother of the bridegroom e-mailed that she was planning on wearing a black skirt with a white top which I thought sounded a little staid until I saw her. The skirt had a kind of can-can ruffled front, which showed some leg and also fit very nicely over the hips.
We looked terrific. When people look at my daughter’s and her son’s wedding album they will not wonder “Where are the mothers?”
Here’s another thing that broke the mold. Our children invited us, the mothers, to be part of the ceremony, to each give a tiny talk (3 minutes max) on what makes a marriage work. The mother of the groom, married 40-plus years, said hers is a work in progress and that it takes friends, family and patience to make a marriage work. I said that falling in love is Christmas the Fourth of July and dancing under the stars, but marriage is Tuesday morning and Thursday night, going to the hardware store, drinking coffee.
Of course, like all mothers, we cried during the ceremony and beamed during all the toasts. The groom’s mother stayed on the dance floor until the music stopped and she had to get up the next morning and go to work, being a Methodist preacher.
Nothing beige about that Tomato.