The Best Man Remembers: Engagement Through Rehearsal

These are brother Mike McQueeny's reminiscences...

It was my last final, on the last day of my first semester of law school- which meant I was in one place… Well, maybe more accurately, two places at once- as far away from the library as possible, and as close to a bar as possible. There we were, all the members of section D- drowning away the hours of hard work, anxiety, and self-selected stress. Our bodies now vanquished of our blood, sweat, and tears, we replenished them with shots, burgers, and beers.
We were a couple hours into our celebration, when suddenly I heard my phone ringing from my pocket. I looked down, and I saw the call was from my brother Matt. I didn’t think much of it, and reasoned that to answer the call in the middle of the bar and in the middle of our celebration seemed futile, as my level of comprehension diminished with each drink. Click- I’ll give him a call tomorrow.
All of a sudden, a second call- again from Matt. Soon after, another call, from my Dad. You need to understand that, though we care about each other, communication in our family is nevertheless fairly limited. I’ll talk to my mom and dad once a week, my older brother maybe once a month, and my younger siblings- well, it’s a nod and a howyadoing on the holidays, and other than that we stick to our familial roles.

You have to understand then, that to have such a sudden rush of phone calls is like the startling sounds of excessive ping’s on naval sonar. Something’s gone wrong. All of a sudden, in my inebriated, overexerted-from-study mental process, all the worst possibilities overflow my thoughts. No, not Aunt Nora… Oh my God, somebody ran over Duke…
Afraid to call home only to be subject to a rush of tears at the prospect of something that must certainly be the worst, I send a text to my brother and waited anxiously to heart the fate that is my family.

Soon after, he texted back…. “WE GOT ENGAGED!!!”

Suddenly a flood of emotions overwhelmed me on receipt of this text, and there I stood… in the middle of the bar… my hands in the air… shouting in a rush of happiness ---

“DUKE’S NOT DEAD!!!!!!” And of course I was overjoyed for Matt and Mel as well.

Matt’s engagement and subsequent marriage has meant a lot to me. Growing up as a younger brother, you are always following in your brother’s footsteps- retreading the first day of school, playing his games (which were often to his delight and my dismay), and even wearing his hand-me-down clothes. Grade school, college, working in the world- every time my brother encountered a new step in life as the eldest, every action signaled a new event in our family. Hearing the news that he was ready to make another huge step in life was another signal of my family growing up.

Months after the engagement we went out to Macaroni Grille, on what was an otherwise unremarkable night. We had the same chatting as always, ate the same food as always, having a very normal McQueeny night. (I’m assuming Tom got the lasagna, my dad got the mushroom ravioli, and my mom put the leftover bread in her purse, “for the dogs,” she probably claimed).

The dinner ends, and we all slowly begin to meander out to the cars, and right before we leave Matt unassumingly taps me on the shoulder.. “Hey, you wanna be my best man?” As much as at the time I was shocked, it was nevertheless a typical McQueeny move- such casualness in the face of what is really such a momentous occasion between brothers. As calm as if he were asking if I wanted to go see a movie that night- Hey, do you want to be the one to stand tall next to me when I take one of the biggest steps of my life? He next turned to Tom, and said, “… and you’re going to be in the wedding party too,” said in the classic elder brother tone, less asking a question and more giving an order that expected compliance. “Of course” was my reaction. “Of course” was Tom’s. We’re your brothers, where else would we stand?

Then came the wedding months. Non-stop conversations of who, what, when, where, how, and why. Most of the who, what, when, where, and how’s came from Melany. Most of the why’s came from Matt. However, Matt soon learned the greatest lesson of marriage my father could ever pass down to him: You have another 50 years of marriage, start learning to keep your mouth shut now.

As our family became overwhelmed by the details of such a large event, with so many moving parts, I asked my brother what I could do. I said, “Matt, what are my duties as best man?” I had looked around and seen Melany’s maid and matron of honor working hard setting up parties, helping her with the fine details of the wedding, going out with her to interview, taste, and view various wedding-related activities. Matt looked back at me and said, “Well, you have to make a speech… and plan the bachelor party…”

We filled out the groomsmen roster with a solid cast of characters: Myself as best man, my brother Tom, Matt’s good friend from his New York Sports Club days Tim, one of Matt’s band mates from high schools Andrew, Matt’s boss JIG, and Matt’s oldest friend Tony Larghi.

While traditionally the Best Man’s main roles in the wedding is to carry the ring, give a profound and respectful speech of the Groom, be there for the Groom to complain about his fiancée during the wedding selection process (Melany, luckily I didn’t have to fill this role for Matt) (Matt, don’t worry, I’d never tell Melany your complaints of her during the process}), but most importantly, host the bachelor party.

Well, if I were the head of our groomsmen team, I had the Barry Bonds of bachelor parties in Matt’s boss JIG. In that right, my part in the whole bachelor party was less to plan the party, so much as to act as the Chairman of the Board, and veto the dangerous, crazy, or absurd ideas, all of which were presented to me by JIG. By duty and law, I am unable to disclose any of the ideas that came across my desk, but needless to say, there were good odds that half of us weren’t coming back alive from half of JIG’s ideas.

We chose Atlantic City in early November for the bachelor party. A friend in the party made the great gesture of getting us three discounted rooms through an associate- however, there was a mixup and though we had three rooms next to each other- they were next to each other vertically, as our hotel rooms were 507, 607, and 707.

By the time Matt got to the hotel, the party was ready for him. Of the three rooms, one had a bathtub filled with beers, another had a cooler filled with every kind of alcohol known to man, and outside the third room, that no one had been to, was a platter of two bottles of the hotel’s nicest champagne. Melany meant this as a sweet gesture to her soon-to-be husband and his friends. However, in the statutes of bachelor partydom, this constituted a breach of fiduciary duty. Contacts with wives and girlfriends are strictly forbidden, but gifts were another offense of a greater order. A fiancee’s gift to a bachelor party is normally only to let the affianced actually go. But to attempt to dissuade the group from craziness, to provide such a classy gift… Matt got made fun of relentlessly for hours to come.

Through a number of ups and downs throughout the night, some people lost possessions, most lost money, and only Matt lost his shirt and underwear (a result of pranks, rather than trouble).

Melany had texted me the night of the bachelor party, good-heartedly saying, “No ‘Hangover’ [the movie] kind of trouble, unless you meet Mike Tyson.” I texted her back saying in the most lawyerly tone possible, “Trouble is such an amorphous term incapable of adequate identification let alone enforcement. Matt’s coming home mostly in one piece.” Melany neither found that comment funny nor ever responded to it…

I left Atlantic City that day and headed back to finals. As the excitement of the wedding season began to heat up, my anxiety increased. The anxiety was mainly a result of finals (who are we kidding, the anxiety is a main stay of my law school curriculum), but it was also a result of my slow realization that I was only a month away from giving a speech to close to 200 people.

That fall, I had competed in Villanova’s Reimel Moot Court Competition that’s held every year. We were on two member teams, and you would go head to head against another team, each member arguing for 1 part of a 2- part issue. I teamed up with a friend of mine who was a smart, talented, and prepared individual. We entered our first oral argument with a two- judge panel, and our team was first, and she got up to deliver our opening and argue her side of the case…

THE JUDGES RIPPPPED INTO HER. I don’t say to this to be mean, to insinuate that she wasn’t ready, or to say anything against her credit, because as I said, she is a smart person. The judges came ready to play, they came ready to knock law students off their perches, and within minutes of the massacre I looked over to the other side of the room where our two “opponents” sat. They glanced back at me with an “oh shit” look, realizing though we may be “opponents”, we’re certainly collectively screwed today. The judges were so harsh, and so relentless that my partner barely got through half of her full time, before she simply finished, came back to our bench, and sat down with tears on the verge of overwhelming her eyes. I got up, took my lashings, held my ground, and finished.
I only bring this up, because as the wedding got closer, I kept telling myself, “Shit, if I can get through 15 minutes of judges relentlessly trying to break down and tear apart every one of my words, I can get through a 5-minute speech at Matt’s wedding.”

As I brainstormed the wealth of memories I have between Matt and me, I traversed the landscape of our shared history- from the time in Hillsdale when he was having a catch with Dad, and when I tried to join in, he got angry, and beaned me in the head with a baseball- to the first time I ever got in trouble, when Matt convinced me that my mom would find it funny if I pulled all the books off a bookshelf and made a messy pile of them- to memories of Matt teaching me to ride a bike- to Matt being the first one to call me after graduating college and offering me a job (a job that he did more than offer, a job that he sold to his boss and coworkers by telling everyone else I could do all the tasks they were looking for in a new employee).

As the days led up and I found I had more material for the speech than structure, I received a great piece of advice from our family friends Matt and Courtney Higgins. They told me, “Listen, I’ve heard plenty of speeches where people go on and on about shit you never even heard about that’s so remote that you tune out after a minute or so. Less is more. Remember- it’s a toast, not a speech.”

It was an eye opening moment. I thought about my audience, I thought about the wedding:
Who is Matt- a lucky bastard for finding Melany, a techy, a bit of a nerd, a mommas boy, etc.
Who is Melany- a sweet, caring, and loving person. And more importantly- someone who is likely to be offended and misinterpret my off-color jokes.
I realized, ok, keep it short, keep it relevant for everyone, keep everyone engaged. I threw out the sentimentality, added a couple jokes, decided to roast Matt, and praise Melany, and BOOM, I had a speech.

Two days before the wedding, after picking up our tuxes, I thought it’d be a good idea to have a brothers’ lunch out, a chance to include Tom after he missed out on the bachelor party. After my dad heard about it, never the one to pass out an opportunity to go out to eat, he joined in. Though I intended the lunch to have a sense of sentimentality, unfortunately, that’s not of the McQueeny nature. It soon turned into an intervention.

My dad was the one to start- “So Matt, are you, uhh, planning on shaving your facial hair for the wedding…?” Not to embarrass Matt, but to state factually, his facial hair is best described as overgrown peach fuzz. My dad’s interest in the question was less mean so much as reactionary. Like a veteran warning a rookie who’s about to enter into his first battle, my dad was surely having flashbacks to photos of his own wedding day, and an equally bad decision not to shave his facial hair. My dad’s head in those pictures looked like a mixture between a 1970s homeless person and a mountain man.

We all sat around the table at PF Chang's, Matt trying to brush the comments aside, and all of us, like doctors in an emergency room, fighting to keep the conversation alive. I chimed in, “Matt, obviously it’s your wedding day, and I think you should go with your gut. THAT BEING SAID, if you WERE to ask me whether to shave it, I’d have to go ahead and vote yes for the shave.” I looked to Tom, forcing the mob mentality, “Tom, do you concur?” “I concur,” Tom said. I continued, “Matt, obviously, you should do as you wish, but I do just want to state for the record, that you have three votes here for a shave, just to state it as a matter of fact.” We continued to joke for a little, and soon after left.

The next day was December 30th, and the Crystal Plaza, the rehearsal dinner, and not too far away, the wedding awaited us. It’s hilarious to see all your family in one place that isn’t home In normal circumstances people fall into roles assigned by the context. People in a familiar place act in a familiar manner. Putting our family into a new context spun the dradle round and round.

Tom and I walked into the Westminster Hotel, where the wedding party was staying, to see Matt and Dad standing there. Soon after, Uncle Robert and Uncle Billy walked in. Uncle Robert soon after went up to the hotel manager and said, “Do you guys have gambling here?” Why he asked this question, I’ll never know, considering we were only roughly 15 minutes from where he spent most of life presumably in the full knowledge that gambling wasn’t legal in North Jersey. Uncle Billy soon began to regale us with stories of their expeditions around the hotel, where Billy had found his way into the Spa, and had almost immediately been asked to leave. He would tell us later that he was ready to go into what he thought was the hotel’s sauna, and as he took off his towel and walked in, security came up to him and informed him that he was in fact walking into the boiler room.

Uncle Robert and Billy scurried off, Robert yelling, “Come on Billy, let’s go find some more stuff,” scrambling off like two freshmen at a Junior Statesmen of America event. Soon after, Melany and her mother walked in. As I rushed up to give them a hug, Melany’s mother, with her booming voice started to yell at me and Dad in a way that only a teacher used to dealing with immature bullying could: “HOW DARE YOU BOYS MAKE YOUR BROTHER SELF-CONSCIOUS LIKE THAT, HE WAS CALLING ME UP LATE LAST NIGHT SAYING HIS DAD AND BROTHERS WERE HASSLING HIM ABOUT HIS BEARD. I TOLD HIM HE LOOKED FINE AND SO SHOULD YOU HAVE.”

And like two grade school kids who just got in trouble with the principle, my dad and I hung our heads, folded our hands in front of us and said, “Sorry Mrs. Felsen, we won’t do it again.”

We readied ourselves and headed out to the rehearsal. I had never been to the Crystal Plaza before, and I was struck by its magnificence from the get-go. We walked up the staircase, and were shown the Bridal party readying room, where the bride and her party wait and prepare. I peeked my head in, and it was a room straight off the Titanic. Fancy furniture, beautiful high ceilings, chandeliers, and the works. The event coordinator hurried us groomsmen off to show us the ropes, and then we readied to practice. The event coordinator looked at us and said, “Ok, we’re going to do a practice run. We’re going to put you into the groom’s waiting room for a while, just so you can get the feel.” After seeing the bridal party’s room I expected the best: nice furniture, chandeliers, possibly a bar, etc.

We were hurried off to the room, and just as the lights went on, the door slammed behind us. As we looked around, we found ourselves in a barren hallway, with no chairs to sit in, that I am assuming must have led to the loading docks, because the room was as cold and breezy as an outdoor January day. We waited, 5 mins, 10 mins, 15. We began to question whether Matt was about to get married at the Crystal Plaza or about to get interrogated at Guantanamo. We peaked our head out the door, “Can we please come out now?”

The practice began, and slowly, though not clad in our wedding day garb, already I could look around and feel the gravity of the occasion. Though I had always known my brother was going to get married, the grandeur of the Crystal Plaza, the momentousness of the moment, and the looks Matt and Melany began to share with each other really began to make the wedding extremely real. There’s always that disconnect in logic, where thinking about events occurring and knowing that that event will occur exist across a vast divide. As we stood there in that moment, our closest friends and family around us, and Matt and Mel up on the altar, that separation in logic almost disappeared, and I realized what my brother was about to do.

Truth be told, I think I had more emotions going through me at that practice than I did at the ceremony. Not that the ceremony wasn’t lovely, it was. In all respects the ceremony even surpassed those high expectations that I had set that night at the rehearsal. But nevertheless, as I saw my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law standing together on the altar, holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes, it was like witnessing the wedding without the ceremony, the love without the formality. A day before what was sure to be a whirlwind of excitement, nerves, and activity; and here in its barest form, were two people standing there smiling at each other, knowing that not only would tomorrow happen, but 40 and 50 years together would happen as well. That rehearsal ended up being a very special moment for me, and a memory of Matt and Mel that I think I’ll have forever.

Matt and Melany's Wedding:Part 3

New Year’s Eve –Wedding Day-- dawned bright and relatively warm in the low 40’s. We went to breakfast at a nearby diner with Robert, Maeve and Myrna. We asked Billy to come, but he wasn’t ready to get up.

After breakfast, I ran into my sister Marian, her husband Benny, Marian’s twin Margaret and Margaret’s 3-year-old twin granddaughters at the buffet breakfast in the hotel. I went outside to phone my sister Nora, still in the hospital, to let her know that Melany had publicly remembered her the night before. And, because I’m not one to hold things in, I said to Nora,”I can’t believe that [your son] Nick goes to every Dave Matthews Band concert in carnation, but he can’t make it to his cousin’s wedding. It says to me that he has no relationship with his Aunt Mary’s family, and I don’t understand that. You can tell him that.”

I didn’t mean to upset Nora, but I was her birth coach at Nick’s birth. I was the godmother at his baptism. Matt and Nick were together a lot when they were little, because Nora lived with our parents until Nick was 3. And when Nick was older and got into scrapes before he made a success of himself, I proved various kinds of support.

I went back into the hotel and sat with my sisters and family. Within ten minutes, I got a call on my cell phone. It was Nora:”Nick’s coming,” she said. “But he cancelled his hotel room. You’ll have to re-reserve it.”

The week before, we had speculated about what we would do with ourselves in the long period between breakfast and the 7:30 pm ceremony. My sons Matt, Mike, Tom and matron of honor Celeste’s husband John went bowling. Uncle Benny and his son Lou B. –whom Matt had gone to Europe with and whom Matt had lived with in Phoenix after college graduation—went into Manhattan for a quick tour. Jim went back to Mahwah to feed and walk the dogs and to pick up his brother Kevin and Kevin’s fiancée Cindi from New Milford. Uncle Robert, Maeve, Myrna, and I went to a local CVS drug store to get hygiene and grooming supplies; Robert got potato chips and soda. Aunt Jayme and Grandma Betty were having their hair done at their local salon. Aunt Marian got a massage and Aunt Margaret B. got a mani-/pedi.

At about 12:30, bridesmaids and female relatives met up in the bridal suite, where Melany and her mom Susan had slept the night before. The bridal party’s only bridesman – Tony R.—came in his dress socks and hotel bathrobe: He looked very cute. Matron of honor Celeste’s husband John delivered lunch before going to bowling.

There were two hairstylists and two makeup artists Melany and Susan had engaged to give us our makeovers. Maid of honor Jess Zelizo was pouring champagne and mimosas in glasses with plastic ice cubes that lit up.
Cousin Jayme invited bridedsman Tony R. to her room to look at her Spanx—those industrial-strength gut-suppressors. When they returned, I began to sing an alternate rendition of Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets”—“Tony and the Spanx.”

The irrepressible cousin Jayme began regaling us with the story of how she had told her fiancé John that “the candy store would be closed tonight.’ She also told us that Grandma Betty said you could gauge a man’s skills in the bedroom by his performance on the dance floor. Grandpa Jim was an excellent dancer, said Betty. Betty later confirmed to me that she had indeed made this observation. (So what does it mean that my own husband Jim dislikes dancing and –when forced to – does a left-to-right, right-to-left shuffle? And what does it mean that, at every wedding, , my brother-in-law Donny O does the “pretzel dance,” a winding in and out without ever letting go of your partner’s hands?)

By5 pm, the female side of the wedding party was made up and up-do’ed, and headed over to the Crystal Plaza to get dressed. The bridesmaids’ gowns –simple, black and strapless –looked beautiful on all of them. Matt and the groomsmen had taken the shuttle over to the Crystal Plaza around 4:30. Jim and I went over in his car.

We stopped in the foyer of the Crystal Plaza to look at family pictures displayed on the center table: Photos of Jim’s and my wedding, Steven and Susan’s wedding, and shots of Melany and Matt as toddlers and teens. We looked at Melany’s beautiful bouquet, crafted by her fellow teacher Gerry, who has a passion for flowers. The bouquet, which contained white Eskimo roses, pink Sophie roses, and white stephanotis, also had within it Mel’s dad Steven’s wedding yarmulke and some trim from Mel’s mom Susan’s wedding gown. And Susan’s wedding veil hung over the raised platform where Mel and Matt would say their vows.

Melany said Gerry actually worked with Mel’s dad Steven in the Mount Olive school system, and he’s known Melany since she was a little girl.

“Gerry got involved with flowers at a young age,” said Melany. “Gerry liked flowers and would go to wholesalers and watch what they did with them. He even started making corsages and boutonnieres for his classmates who couldn't afford expensive flowers for prom. Years later as an adult, he worked at David's Country Inn (a catering hall in Hackettstown) as a waiter, and that is where he met Monica, who is the owner of the shop where he works now, Fleurs Divine.”

Jim and I walked up the Crystal Plaza’s central staircase, where the groomsmen ( best man and brother Mike McQueeny, Matt’s very hip boss Jig, Matt’s long-time friend Tim G whom he met at the gym, Matt’s high school friend Andrew Firkins, Matt’s childhood friend Tony L. and brother Tom McQueeny) were hanging out, partaking of sandwiches and drinks provided by the Crystal Plaza. Jig told the staff to keep the Jack-and-Cokes coming.

I went over to the bride’s dressing room, where Melany was getting into her dress, with the assistance of her mom Susan, Aunt Jayme, Grandma Betty and Cousin Jay-Jay. Once dressed, Melany was spoon-fed a couple of mouthfuls of fruit by Crystal Plaza staff, so that she wouldn’t spill anything on her dress.

Melany had gotten her dress at Bijou Bridals in Paramus. Designed by Stephan Joli, it was strapless with a sweetheart neckline, mermaid shape with lace flowers and Swarovski crystals all over it. It had a train and it sparkled every way she turned. Melany had gone dress shopping with her mother, grandmother and aunt. The Bijou folks took the dress she ultimately chose off a mannekin for Mel to try on.

Melany wore a fingertip-length veil with lace flowers that matched the flowers on her gown.

“Matt was surprised to find out I was wearing a veil,” Melany said. “I think he pictured a veil to be what women of the Middle East wear.”

Just before the ceremony, Matt got word that his groomsman Matt O would not be there. Matt O Facebooked him, writing: “Dude, it’s not looking good. I’m probably not going to be able [to make] your wedding. It’s a disgrace really but as it stands now, I can’t find any flights because they are either booked, or too late so I’d miss everything. I’m going to stay up for another hour or so to see if I can get anything but it’s not looking good. I can’t apologize enough but ultimately mother nature f…’ed me. I have no idea what to write but call me when ya can. I haven’t slept in 2 days and am frustrated. This sucks.”

Finally, it was nearly 7:30. You could hear the murmur of the crowd behind the doors of the room where the ceremony would take place. The “director” of the event –Crystal Plaza staffer Nella – lined us up in the hallway.

NEXT: I DO's

The Wedding Of Matt and Melany:Part Two

Thursday, December 30, 2010:I stepped out of my car in the Crystal Plaza parking lot and into the wedding bubble that would isolate us from the everyday world and carry us for the next three days.   Matt and Melany had chosen the Crystal Plaza –which has a kind of Louis Quatorze-Versailles vibe with lots of gilding and trompe l’oeil painting – at least in part because that was where Susan and Mel’s late dad Steven had exchanged their vows in the‘70s.

The rehearsal at 5 pm Thursday at the Crystal Plaza was a taste of things to come. We practiced processing down the aisle, Melany’s mom Susan and I practiced lighting the tapers for the Unity candle, Matt and Melany said their vows, and Melany’s Grandma Betty and the groom’s dad Jim practiced their readings.

Grandma Betty’s reading was from 1^st Corinthians:

 ^“If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. “

And Jim’s reading was from Madeleine L’Engle’s book “The Irrational Season”:

“To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected. But ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take…It is indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature. “

After the rehearsal, my daughter Maeve wanted to go back to the hotel to change into dressier clothes. But, both she and her friend Myrna were both stylishly – if causally—dressed in leggings, boots, tunics and waist-cinching belts, and I said, “We can’t go back to the hotel. I have a rehearsal dinner to host.”

The dinner was at an Italian place called Calabria’s. Melany and Matt had come with me and Jim to check out several places in Livingston in October. Matt liked Calabria’s the best.

When we got there, Melany’s Grandma Betty had already met Matt’s friend from first grade Tony L. Tony is now 29 and tall, but he has the face –and the dimples—of a first-grader.”He’s not hard to look at,” Betty pronounced later.

 Matt has told us over the years the story of how Tony L. takes a job each summer in Cape Cod and bicycles to Cape Cod from New Hampshire, eating one meal a day that consists of a big can of tuna and a bottle of beer, and sleeping at the side of the road. Tony had already been fitted for a tux identical to those of the groomsmen, and my number two son Mike said that, if Matt O didn’t show up, they would “ bring Tony up from the minors.”

Tony L. sat next to me at the rehearsal dinner, and we caught up and talked about his mother, father and sisters. On Tony’s other side was the only male member of Melany’s bridal party, her gay friend from graduate school, Tony R. Tony R. began hitting on Tony L. (Tony R. said his name spelled backwards is “Y NOT?”) Tony L. ate multiple plates of fried calamari. I couldn’t tell whether Tony R. was unsettling Tony L.

At another table were my sister Marian and her husband Benny, my sister Margaret B. and her three daughters Hannah (and boyfriend Brad), Monica and Julia (and boyfriend John), and Monica’s three-year-old twin daughters  Abigail and Jocelynn. (I can’t get enough of these little girls. Jocelynn greeted me on Wednesday night, saying, “I’m so happy you have lollipops.” And when Abby saw me cleaning on Thursday, she said, “I’ll work with you, Aunt Mary.”)

Opposite my sisters’ table was Melany’s family: Grandma Betty, Melany’s mother Susan, Susan’s sister Aunt Jayme and her daughter Jay-Jay and Jay-Jay’s fiancé Judge John.. This overwhelming female-power family calls themselves the New Jersey Steel Magnolias. We –Matt’s family – call them the “phone chain,” because if you mention something to Matt, all of Melany’s family scattered across North Jersey will know about it within 30 minutes. Their delivery record is better than Domino’s Pizza.

They dress to kill. Grandma Betty gets her hair done every week, in a style I think channels Jackie O.  They celebrate every birthday and holiday with lots of gifts, homemade foods and dessert. They are kind, compassionate and thoughtful, and Jim says Matt is clearly marrying “up” by cleaving to their family.

To give Melany some comparison about what it’s like to be a McQueeny, I told Melany about a gift Jim’s brothers gave their late mother one Christmas when I first started dating Jim. With great ceremony, they handed their mother a matchbook, and said, “Merry Christmas, Mommy.” Never one to fuss but kind of bewildered, she said, “Thank you.” They said, “No, Mommy, you’ve got to open it up.” She did and found a folded $50 bill and two scratch-off Lotto tickets inside. A perfect McQueeny gift: One with a joke and a surprise, and readily purchased at the Quickie Mart, along with their cigarettes. When their mother got the joke and the surprise, the McQueeny brothers (then in their twenties)  howled with laughter at their own  ingenuity.

At the rehearsal dinner, Melany’s cousin Jay-Jay, resplendent in an off-the-shoulder green velvet sheath, said my nieces were so beautiful in an Irish way, they looked like “Celtic Woman,” the all-female musical group created by a director of “Riverdance.” Grandma Betty was every inch a cougar in her shimmery red top at age 86. (Betty was miffed at the bachelorette party in a Mexican restaurant when a Latino waiter addressed her as "Mama." "Chica" would have been more her speed.)

Matt stood up to welcome everyone and Melany wanted everyone to remember Aunt Nora, whose absence was felt, but whose courage was to be acknowledged and emulated.

Jim’s brother Kevin and fiancée Cindi did not make the rehearsal dinner because one of her 4 cats had sprained or broken a leg. (The two of them had also missed our annual Christmas Eve dinner because another cat was having tremors.) Jim had told Kevin, “ I understand that you can’t come to the rehearsal dinner, but there will be no more cat excuses for the wedding or I’ll throw the freaking cat out of the car.”

At the dinner, they were passing around a big porcelain plate with a drawing of a groom on which dinner goers could inscribe best wishes. It took the writer Tom (my number three son, age 17)  about 45 minutes to come up with something. He finally wrote: “May your marriage be long and happy and full of awkward blinks,” a reference to Matt’s habit of blinking blankly when he doesn’t have an immediate response to a question, statement or acclamation.

Uncle Robert, Jim’s other brother, said he would draw a noose around the neck of the groom pictured on the plate. He also said he would write the only advice he’s been giving Matt:”Don’t do it!” (Of course, when he saw Melany in her wedding gown, he reversed himself, telling Matt, “Do it!” and adding, right in front of his wife Felicia, “Felicia never looked this good.”(Along with their penchant for odd gifts,  the McQueeny brothers don’t have a diplomacy filter.)

About two hours into the rehearsal dinner, Abigail and Jocelynn were starting to tire and cry. At one point, I took one of the little girls and went back to sit at my table. Mel’s mother Susan came to sit next to me, and asked, “ Is that Jocelynn?” I had to lift up the twin’s face to verify .And I silently applauded Susan for her emotional intelligence, specifically her ability to distinguish between the twins. I sometimes still have trouble and I’ve been with them a lot more of late.

About 8:45 pm,   Marian came over to my table , told me the hotel shuttle had arrived at Calabria’s, and  asked whether Maeve and her friend Myrna would take the little girls back to the hotel and get them into their pajamas and into bed. That way, their mom Monica could stay at the dinner a while longer.

But Monica came up to me about 10 minutes later, distressed that -- when Maeve and Myrna had shepherded the little ones onto the shuttle--, their grandmother Margaret B. had thrown herself onto the shuttle, shouting, “They’re my grandchildren.” Margaret has been a great support to Monica with the twins, but I guess she upsets Monica when Monica feels she oversteps her role.

Next:....Wedding day arrives!

The Wedding of my son Matt and Melany:Part One

Wedding week began with 22 inches of snow. When I opened the back door on Monday morning December 27, the snow was nearly knee high. And, because our plow guys didn’t come to clear our long driveway until Tuesday morning, we were snowed in for 24 hours. My number two son Mike--on holiday from Villanova Law School -- got out to go to “wing night” at the Allendale Bar and Grill by tramping to the end of the driveway to be picked up by his friend.

My sister Marian called from Arizona to say her flight had been cancelled because of the weather back East. She and her husband Benny came in a day later –taking a plane to Philadelphia, a train to Newark and finally picking up their rental car at Newark Airport. They arrived Wednesday night around 10. My sister Margaret B. her daughter Monica and the 3-year-old twin granddaughters came in from Maryland Wednesday afternoon. I got paella for dinner for them from the Market Basket. That evening, I had to go to a board meeting at the adoption agency I work with. I finally tried on the gown I had bought in October at Neiman Marcus Last Call for the wedding. It was way too long. Margaret took up the hem for me.

My sister Nora –a four-year ovarian cancer survivor--was in the hospital in Syracuse. On Christmas Day she had been running a fever of 103.7 and she was admitted. She had been looking so forward to the wedding of her nephew Matt and Melany, but it seemed clear she wasn’t going to be out of the hospital in time for the Friday night New Year’s Eve wedding. She asked whether her son Nick could Skype the ceremony.

By Wednesday, when I asked Nora whether Nick and his sister Kendall were coming to the wedding, Nora said,” They’re discussing it,” not a promising reply considering that I had already booked two hotel rooms for Nora’s family. Also on Wednesday, my son Matt called and was upset that he couldn’t get in touch with his high school friend and groomsman Matt O, who was living in Colorado. Matt O had apparently not been measured for his tux. “This is bad, Mom,” said Matt. “He’s off the grid.” I said it would all work out, and Matt said I was being an enabler for Matt O.

On Thursday, I took Maeve and Margaret to the hairdresser. I was a little spacey and distracted, because there were so many people in the house and so many people to consider in planning the day. We took several cars to the hotel where we were staying in Livingston. I stayed back to clean the house and get some private time before entering the whirlwind. I finally got dressed for the rehearsal dinner and programmed the GPS to take me directly to the wedding site—the Crystal Plaza in Livingston – for the rehearsal at 5 pm.

When I talked to Nora Thursday, she said neither her son Nick nor daughter Kendall was coming to the wedding. “Kendall and [Nick’s girlfriend] Jane are fighting, and Nick doesn’t want to drive a car with two fighting women,” she said.

But, amazingly, Jim’s brother, Uncle Billy, had come down from his apartment in the Monticello, NY area for the wedding. He was going to come to the wedding as of early November, then said he wasn’t coming around Thanksgiving because his 99 weeks of unemployment had run out. He again said he was coming early in December, and actually was in New Jersey a week before Christmas after his girlfriend threw him out briefly for gambling away $150 of her money at a local Indian casino. Then before Christmas he said he couldn’t come because he might be able to get a day of work at the Yiddish hotel where he sometimes works security. [ He likes the job at the Yiddish hotel. He’ll take some of the diamond merchant guests for a ride in the hotel’s 4-wheeler, and then laughs when he plunges them down a ski slope. “They scream like little girls,” he tells me.]

Billy wanted to bring his arrest record on charges of stealing a car when he was younger. Billy apparently stole the car in concert with his friend Tommy O., who spent the 30 years before his recent death as the boyfriend of Cindi, the current fiancée of Billy’s and Jim’s brother Kevin. I guess Billy wanted to reminisce with Cindi about the old times, the good times with Tommy, whatever. Jim told Billy he didn’t think that kind of reminiscing was a good idea.

Meanwhile, early Thursday, Matt had reached his friend Matt O, who said he had worked 3 straight 12-hour shifts at his job at PF Chang’s, but that he had been measured for his tux and, if Joseph A. Banks lost the measurements, he would get measured again. “Matt O is back on the grid,” Matt told me.