Wedding Relations

Then there’s Amanda, my sister from Montreal, a twice-divorced academic, whose brittle shell has last lasted through the years. On the morning of the wedding, as Frank walked out to his Jeep to drive over to Mill Valley to check on the reception preparations, she followed him out to his car. He was carrying a styrofoam cup filled with steaming coffee. Frank’s jaw dropped as he heard this little-known aunt say, “Do you have any idea what a sinner you are? You are contributing to the deterioration of the earth’s ozone layer and I hope that you are ashamed of yourself.”

Nevertheless, the morning passed without a major skirmish, even as, on demand, I drove one sister to a swim session and two others to hair appointments. It was a relief to finally help my son button himself into his tuxedo. Then we all made our way to St. Hilary’s Catholic church, high on a hill in Tiburon. The ceremony was intricate and full of cultural symbolism. The bride’s mother and I draped a double rosary of gold loops over the heads of our daughter and son to symbolize the Mexican Aztec tradition of the unifying bond of an intercultural marriage.

Frank presented Gema with thirteen gold coins, or arras, a symbol of trust and confidence, and carried here by a visiting cousin from Gaudalajara. A deep-chested cantor transported us in his rendition of “On Eagle’s Wings” and a soprano moved us with the meditative “Ave Maria.” Sister Amanda was unimpressed and had her nose in a book about the Dalai Lama. Wasn’t it a bit ironic to be lost in a book about “being in the moment” during her nephew’s wedding?

At the reception, the Mill Valley Outdoor Art Club welcomed us with the lively tunes of a silver-studded charro-outfitted Mariachi Band, their performance a gift from the bride’s family. Their violins, trumpets and guitars matched their songs of machismos, love, betrayal, and death, set us smiling again, and tapping our feet. After a hot buffet dinner fed the two hundred guests, the lines to the bar became longer and longer. A DJ took over for the Mariachi band. Single women were on the hunt for hapless men, one of my nieces cleverly snaring an eligible lawyer. Older ladies, couples - straight and otherwise - smiled in pleasure, as they watched the energetic dancers.