In just shy of two months, my six-year-old daughter is going to be a flower girl. If you know anything about Scarlette, that sentence likely struck fear and delight in your heart simultaneously. This will be her first time in a wedding and the outcome of her flower girl performance is completely unpredictable. For one thing, she’s yet to gracefully drop flowers on our practice runs in favor of pelting them at mock stuffed animal wedding guests.
For another, I never know what this kid is going to blurt out at unexpected moments. Like how I was trying to explain her flower girl duties to her and she replied, “Okay Mommy, but what is my JOB DESCRIPTION here?”
We’ve been practicing walking slowly down our hallway towards our makeshift fireplace altar but as of yet she has not managed to make it all the way across the room without a twirl or a dip or a flourish. We’ve also been practicing standing still and so far we have successfully built up to three-minute increments. “My body just doesn’t actually KNOW how to be still inside itself,” Scarlette told me yesterday as I held a timer and she twisted side to side.
Scarlette became enchanted with the idea of being a flower girl the day we accompanied the bride to choose her wedding dress and find matching flower girl attire. “WHOA. IT IS LIKE BEAUTIFUL EXPLOSION IN THIS PLACE!” she exclaimed as we walked in.
Then, despite my repeated warnings about “staying with Mommy” and “keeping our hands to ourselves” and “not stepping on people’s really expensive dresses,” she spotted a girl all done up in bridal finery and took off towards her. She skidded to a stop just inches short of an intricately beaded train (which about gave me a heart attack), looked up at the bride in awe and said, “Oh wow. You look just like a real life princess, ma’am.”
That earned her a front row seat to the festivities as my mother tried on wedding dresses. Scarlette is good for the self-esteem.
After that, she decided to run commentary from the sidelines as she observed all of the bridal gowns like she was hosting some sort of wedding-centric Sports Center.
“And THIS wedding dress has thousands of sparklies and is like a Cinderella dress except for how it is not even blue and also it has some swirlies that are very nice.”
“And this wedding dress is POOFY and very good for twirling, I think.”
“Oh this wedding dress is very flow-uhly and beautiful. Probably Mister S will like this dress.”
I would say that I do not even know where she gets this from except I was busy in the accessories corner carefully placing bejeweled bands atop my hair while exclaiming, “IT’S A TIARA!”
(I lose all my good sense around bedazzled finery, y’all.)
Then my mother came out of the dressing room in a dress that was stunningly beautiful but also cut down so low that it rivaled J.Lo’s famous green dress at the Grammy’s.
“Well,” my sister said haltingly to the attendant, “that one is very pretty but maybe just a little bit revealing,” when Scarlette cut in,
“OH NO, she said at full volume, echoing through the store, “OH! NO! I can ALMOST SEE YOUR NEKKID IN THIS DRESS and Mister S does NOT want to see that, he does NOT. Because NEKKID is only for PRIVACY.”
Then she turned to me and stage whispered, “Mommy. I think you need to tell these people about the nekkid rules.”
And that’s why I have more pre-wedding jitters than the actual bride.
For more hilarious Scarlette Shenanigans, read here. Trust me.
