Home Writers Directory Norman Greene May 10, 2007 |
___________________________________________________________
The Greene Line
Norman Greene
___________________________________________
It’s the "little" things that make
for a successful wedding celebration, or so I
was told. Of course, there seemed to be some disagreement as to what
constitutes "the little things."
My friend Carolyn, twice a successful mother of a married child, told me
in
no uncertain terms, that "flowers make a wedding." But at the same time, my
friend Jay advised that a successful wedding was one where the music carried
the evening.
So there it was. We had to have beautiful flowers and a wonderful band. The search was on to find both, but at an affordable fortune.
The country club shared with us a list of preferred providers and we
thought
that was a good place to start. The first florist on the list had a
convenient address, so I made an appointment. There were no flowers in the
office into which the three of us were ushered, but there were a few well
placed photos
on the walls.
Before I was even seated, the proprietor announced: "Well. of course, you
know that I am the most expensive florist in the county." I was not sure if
she was joking or not, as I seated myself rather uncomfortably. She
discussed my daughter’s long list of preferences and then announced, "I
couldn’t possible do this wedding for under $30,000. I guess she wasn’t
joking after all. We left.
It seemed as though we were interviewing florists every other day
thereafter.
In hindsight, it helped us to formulate what we really wanted for our
daughter’s big event. Throwing away the preferred providers list, we
resorted next to the Yellow Pages.
We had almost selected an Ocean Beach Florist, with real flowers in her
shop, whose ideas were similar to our own, but the fact that she had never
worked
in a synagogue made me somewhat queasy. Each time, she slipped and said
"church," my heart stopped. Still she was a lovely woman and her product
seemed close to our imagined ideal.
A call from a friend came with another suggestion. My daughter and I met
with Sandy Goldstein of Chantal Flowers at her home and, although language
was a bit of a barrier, her ideas jelled. We had found a florist who not
only excited us, but also promised to provide in February a Lilies of the
Valley bridal bouquet
for a somewhat reasonable price. Those lilies were important to my daughter.
After all, the same flowers had been carried by Jacqueline Bisset.
You have heard of the wedding crashers? Well, we became them.
Accompanied by my future son-in-law, and once even by his parents, we |
began sampling musical groups. We usually had the approval of the bands
to sort of stand at the back of the various ballrooms and once even the
wedding party’s. I only sampled one cocktail at a no-host bar, which
obviously wasn’t a Jewish wedding.
Perhaps it was generational, even with a drink in hand, the bands were either dead sounding, with long breaks in between numbers, or they were blaringly noisy with no music. Even our kids agreed. We hadn’t found the right group to make the evening flow. If their sample CD’s sounded good, their actual performances did not. It was a bit disconcerting as the days passed. How many times could we be voyeurs without getting bounced?
What I found most annoying was the groups with three or four leggy, no-talent females standing in front of the bands and swaying or waving or twitching or whatever it was they were doing.
We wanted danceable music, not a nightclub show.
In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the Wayne Foster Band, but
I knew I could not afford him. Many years earlier, when Foster and his wife
Marin were first getting started in town, I had hired them for my Father’s
70th birthday party. They were terrific then and judging by their
reputation, I knew they were fabulous now....still, the money thing bothered
this
father-of-the-bride.
My daughter made an appointment at Wayne Foster Entertainment where we
interviewed Jacqueline Foster who promised us a seamless evening of
non-stop, multi-generational music and an affair to remember. Surprisingly
enough, she appealed to both my daughter and her dollar-conscious father
almost instantaneously. Can I tell you how rare an occurrence that was?
So gradually, I was getting the hang of this father-of-the-bride thing, saying yes often and calmly writing the checks as an image of Steve Martin became ingrained upon my memory.