THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 130 OCTOBER 2019

WEDDING EDITION

KAY AND RICHARD MARRIED SEPTEMBER 21ST 2019

AT THE KANSAS CITY CLUB

Dear Readers,

Kay and Richard's wedding was beautiful; which proved that with Grandma in charge a professional wedding planner was totally unnecessary! As anyone in the family will affirm I am only too happy to take control of any situation and am never at a loss with my opinions on any and every subject!

Kay and Richard very much wanted some outdoor photo's featuring lush plantings as the backdrop for their wedding party so we scouted locations for this purpose: hopefully situated fairly close to their wedding venue. The three of us spent a very hot, muggy day in the nineties looking at possible locations. Kay's number one choice was Loose Park with its beautiful rose gardens, water features, and pedestrian bridges. As we all know Mother is more of a doubting Thomas than a Pollyanna so I felt duty bound to point out that finding enough parking for the number of cars needed to transport sixteen people might be a problem. Richard (never discouraged by my opinions) suggested that they could ask friends to drop them off and pick them up .

The Rose garden is beautiful but I felt the walk from a parking spot to the location would be a problem for Kay in her ball gown with it's voluminous skirts and a pair of high heels which she found most uncomfortable as she usually wears flats. I had urged her numerous times to wear her wedding shoes for a couple of hours daily to help her feel more comfortable in them but like so much of my advice it didn't seem to be acted upon! Of course there was also the problem of keeping her dress from sweeping up the dirt on the paths and getting grass stains on it too!I also pointed out that if her wedding day was as muggy as our day at the park all her makeup would be running down her face and her hairdo would be ruined. Kay conceded that this was a concern but decided that we should walk on and check out some other sites, which we did. She liked the idea of posing the wedding party on one of the many bridges over the streams with water fowl swimming by and beautiful willow tree's cascading over the banks. I declared the water muddied, the birds a disaster waiting to happen- suppose one of those ducks or swans left the water and started shaking it's wings, spraying her dress? Richard opined that it would be difficult to find a place to even drop the wedding party off at on this side of the park. We were back to the Rose Garden . I suggested that Kay call to see if anyone had booked that location for a wedding on the same day as hers.

The next location was the Nelson Atkins museum with all it's outdoor art installations that I personally did not feel were a suitable wedding background- fortunately the traffic and parking at this site was horrendous so we quickly moved onto a small park near Pickwick Place where Kay once lived. Richard was highly in favor of this choice as it was closest to the wedding venue. Kay said it had green grass, tree's, a water feature and permanent residents. Richard didn't think this would be an issue during daylight hours so we parked and explored. It took me only seconds to realize that this park, filled with interesting characters who looked very at home with all their worldly possessions strewn about them - would not make a great back drop.

It was decided to use the Liberty Memorial as a last resort – the photographers suggestion which we had not found appealing. Kay called about using Loose Park and as I had suspected two wedding were scheduled for that day in the Rose Garden and worse hundreds of people were going to be in the park for a fundraising event of some kind.

As it happened Kay's wedding day was overcast and rainy so it was impossible to do outdoor pictures but the wedding photo's turned out beautifully!

Who would have thought tablecloths would be an issue? Kay, Richard, his mother Lisa and I went to the taste testing session at the caterer's with mixed results. One of the fish entrees highly offended Kay as she thought it looked looked and tasted like a can of kitty food. Personally I didn't find the minced cod that offensive as the chef obviously only had a small piece of the fish to work with and was doing his best to stretch it enough for us all to taste. This choice was quickly nixed and replaced with salmon and herbed chicken. The salads and vegetable choices were all excellent and with the decisions on the menu made we moved onto table linens as these had to be rented since the venue did not provide them. We decided on full length round tablecloths for twenty four tables and about 6 rectangular ones for the dessert table, gift table etc. Unfortunately there was a mix-up in the size rented and when shown a photo of how they would look on the tables I agreed with Kay that the “look” was totally unacceptable unless we had a European street cafe theme with a candle stuck in a wine bottle as our style. They barely covered the table top , whereas we wanted them all to be floor length . To reorder the correct size was going to be over a thousand dollars! A ridiculous price so I suggested we get on the web and find cheaper ones to rent and Kay thought even buying them might be an option and it turned out that the later was half the price! Ironing them all was a pain – I tried washing one and throwing it in the dryer but it didn't remove the creases at all so we had to get the spray starch out and spend about an hour ironing each one, I binged watched Law and Order. Kay and Richard set up two ironing stations in front of their television and did the lions share of them!

The week of the wedding came and the Remsburgs were the first out of town family to arrive. As you can imagine Mother was already in a heightened state of anxiety and it was not helped when about an hour before their arrival Josh decided to switch two toilets out in my home. He declared that my basement toilet had better flushing action than the upstairs guest bathroom toilet and since more people would probably be using it he thought it a good move. Why could he have not thought of this in the weeks before? I fretted that the toilets would not fit, that floors would have to be patched, that water was going to be leaking out of the toilets as he carried them up and down two flights of stairs and worse he had to shut the water off but somehow all was in place when the Remsburgs arrived and supper was served!

It was my first time to hold my precious new granddaughter, Callie Ashlyn, who at a month old was almost as big as her nine month old cousin! She is a plus size girl for sure! It's amazing to look at little Leslee-Ann and think she was able to carry and deliver her! Amazingly she was also able to fit into her bridesmaid dress and I am sure you will agree that no-one looking at the bridesmaids would have thought it possible that one of them had given birth to a 10lbs 7oz baby just four weeks ago!

Callie is an excellent baby, she was already virtually sleeping through the night and most of the day too! Unlike Ray who needed absolute silence to sleep, Callie was totally unfazed by Owen and Ray's ear splitting shouts as they ran around the house playing super heroes with a lot of equally noisy support from Craig and Josh.

Callie and Ray, her first family reunion!

Marc and Bryn arrived after midnight the next day and had to take an Uber to Sean and Sarah's house because no- one was willing to make an airport run at that time of the night! On Friday Ming-Jon and Myint flew in and Ming-Lee, Lori, and Claudia drove from Indy to my house for lunch , and Blake flew in on Saturday as he couldn't take a day off college. They spent one night at Coryn's and like others in the family they stayed in a hotel close to the wedding venue on the night of the event. A lot of the Lowe boys thought they would be hitting up our Kansas City night life but I don't think any of them made it past midnight!

Only members of the wedding party were invited to the rehearsal dinner so that included me, Ming-Jon, Coryn , Leslee-Ann, Sean, and their spouses and Ava Claire. Lori, Ming-Lee and Claudia had offered to babysit – meaning Callie I think – but quickly discovered that Owen and Ray would be staying too as trying to get through a rehearsal with their antics was unthinkable and probably Emmy Lou would be much happier playing with her cousins so before they knew it they were saddled with four kids but fortunately they had Josh, Marc and Bryn to help out and Sarah and Craig both opted to stay home too – I think there was a bigger party at my house that night than at the restaurant!

Coryn had left work early as she and I were planing on getting to the venue early to help set up the dining room décor to save time the next day. I changed into the dress I was wearing that night and suggested Coryn might want to do the same as the clock was ticking. She looked at me blankly and said she was wearing what she had on – in- style ripped jeans and a sport themed t-shirt. I was appalled of course and said she would just have to wear something of mine albeit it not her size or style! Coryn reminded me that I had said that the rehearsal dinner restaurant was very casual so she thought jeans would be fine. We went back and forth, my blood pressure rising to dangerous levels.

I decided that my forty year old daughter was old enough to be responsible for this etiquette faux pas and decided to focus on driving to the The Kansas City Club. We were all driving separately as we were planning on staying for varying amounts of time. My car was loaded with wedding paraphernalia but trouble struck before I even managed to get out of the driveway. I never drive into the downtown or Plaza districts without a navigation system as it is too confusing with all the one -way streets and endless construction. My in- car navigation system refused to let me leave Kansas to get to Missouri! I grabbed Craig and asked for his help , he couldn't figure it out either so Bryn tried for awhile and finally had success but I was now at least thirty minutes late. The only positive thing about this hitch was that I caught Coryn going to her car and emerging with a dress! She had been winding me up full throttle much to the amusement of her siblings who greatly enjoyed my suffering!

Once at my destination I pulled into an adjacent parking garage and hauled as much in with me as I could, finding “volunteers” to help with the rest. Before the actual wedding rehearsal started we had the burgundy lace runners on the tables, the mirror circles and centerpiece bowls in place on all twenty tables. Jeremy who is obsessively into cleanliness and orderliness did not feel that the glass bowls were clean enough so took it upon himself to clean them all while we were running through the wedding party line up a few times. It was a struggle to accommodate the seven bridesmaids, seven groomsmen, officiant, bride and groom in the space allotted for the ceremony! But we worked it out eventually! Then we all drove to the restaurant in Westport, about fifteen minutes away from our down town venue. This meant driving in brutal rush hour traffic . Once there I

was planning on trying to park on one of the side streets close by but Sean came dashing over to my car at the stop light, told me to move over to the passenger side , managed to change lanes and get us a spot not too far away. He said it had taken him a while to find parking and he knew I would be frantically driving around in circles and probably end up having a nervous breakdown! What a son. He knows his mother!

After our Italian feast at Cupini's I drove home to family game night which ended when Ming-Lee and family along with Owen returned to Lee Summit for the night.

The next morning I was in full grandmother of the bride mode, re-checking that I had everything I needed to remedy any possible calamity that might arise: everything from a glue gun to spare panties! I loaded up Kay's wedding dress, Ava Claire's flower girl dress and my dress too and was soon at the venue ready to decorate. Shortly after I arrived the florist brought in gorgeous bouquets for the bridal party, corsages and boutonnieres. The flowers far exceeded our expectations! Unfortunately we were missing two boutonnieres but they were quickly delivered.

The first task was to fill all the glass bowls with water beads which I had been soaking for a couple of days previously in big tubs. One of the bridesmaids, Missy was such a great help to me with this task and her boyfriend Michael made numerous trips to the kitchen for water so that we could fill all twenty bowls evenly. Once this task was completed I moved onto decorating the mantle in the Hearth Room where the ceremony was being held. Coryn had kindly allowed us to use her wedding veil as part of the overall design so once I had it in place I started hand tacking silk petals in the wedding colors all over it. More time consuming than I had expected! I was interrupted a couple of times, once when Kay wanted my opinion on her makeup -beautiful except for too dark and thick eyebrows which she was questioning too so she had them redone. Later I was summoned to zip her into her dress. Having tried to do this before I knew it was going to be a challenge as the bodice of the dress is extremely heavy and tight fitting. It has two zippers, the inner one slid up fairly easily but the outer one stuck half way up. I urged Kay to suck in for all she was worth as I tried to force it up, terrified the zipper would break – thank goodness I was prepared for this possibility with needle and thread to sew her into her dress if necessary. Finally in desperation I grabbed the fabric on either side of the zipper together and finally was able to zip it up! The photograph captured this moment of course and I have to say that Kay looked so beautiful that I was moved to tears!

The photographer, JimBob was clicking away for over twelve hours recording the day and did an awesome job! Plus he was a really nice person too. Kay did get a little tired of the constant posing and smiling and once I had to urge him to wrap it up as he was keeping the guests from dinner with the long wait for the bridal party to make their entrance into the dinning room.

Coryn, Kay and Leslee-Ann

The caterers showed up on time and set up a lovely buffet, the cup cake lady set out seven varieties of cupcakes on the table I had arranged and decorated for this purpose and it looked beautiful! Until she added the grooms cake – a chocolate football with the Denver Bronco's logo – Richard and Owens favorite team. I moved it from the front towards the back of the display but someone moved it back to the front in my absence. Most unfortunate as two naughty boys who love chocolate left a lasting impression on the cake – Owen with his hand print and Ray by sticking a finger in it! Grandma was frantically trying to wash a chocolate hand print off the pristine white tablecloth before the guests arrived.

Much to my amazement guests began arriving a full hour and a half before the ceremony was due to start – a first for me. I had not even finished decorating! I had a large bucket of burgundy flowers along with submersible lights that I needed to add to the bowls!

As you may recall from my previous newsletter I had made matching outfits for Emmy Lou and Callie to wear for the wedding and of course their mother's waited to change them into their outfits shortly before the ceremony got under way. I had the dresses, panties, headbands and footless shoes in a see through plastic bin which I left in the bridal suit but unfortunately it was nowhere to be found. I searched every nook and cranny of the place and finally Coryn came through the door with the container. Apparently it had been taken up to the kitchen where everything was meant to be stored until after the wedding. I knew this but never thought someone would take dresses up there!

The DJ did an awesome job of orchestrating the wedding from the start to the end of it.

Kay was a radiant bride as she walked up the aisle on Ming-Jon's arm. When Kay and Richard were exchanging their beautiful, self written, heartfelt vows, many of us were tearing up along with the bride! Richard's friend of many years, Mitchell, did an awesome job of officiating the ceremony. All the bridesmaids and groomsmen were such nice people, and they really helped out so much! Two of the bridesmaids and two of the groomsmen gave great toasts and speeches after which we enjoyed watching the father/ daughter dance, mother/son dance and of course the bride and groom's first dance!

Father of the Bride with the happy couple!

Grandma with her beautiful grand children and we can all see from the picture which one is the naughty one!

The wedding celebration was to end at ten o'clock and the venue allowed an hour after that to remove as much of our stuff as we could , the rest to be stored in the kitchen and picked up on Tuesday. I had decreed that with all the Lowes manpower we should be able to get most of it done that night. However Marc informed me that he was going to leave shortly after dinner with Sarah and a sleepy Emmy Lou. He had a headache – from drinking a couple of stiff drinks – something he is not used to! Mother was not amused but of course Marc is not of much help at his best usually. My other children were a tremendous help and we had everything packed up on time and loaded into my car or Coryn's and Richard was left with one car load to pick up on Tuesday.

I know you all join me in CONGRATULATING MR.AND MRS.RICHARD FLAIG and wish them every happiness in their journey through life together! As we all know Mother will be there to offer her help at all times! There is nothing that makes me happier than being involved in my children's lives even though I think some of you wish I was a little less involved! Love to you all!

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