Ava’s Debut

Ava’s Uncle Brian was married and they had asked Ava to be a flower girl. You know, I’ll be honest, the entire time leading up to the wedding I would go back and forth on whether or not Ava would walk down the isle. It wasn’t until the actual rehearsal that I knew she wasn’t going to do it. She wouldn’t come close to walking down the isle and I admitted defeat- the child just wasn’t going to do it.

The morning of the wedding I went into full prep mode. I put her dress on her and told her she looked just like Cinderella, and she twirled around the living room and loved it I pulled out our wedding video and she watched our flower girls walk down the isle, I was doing everything I could think of. The wedding began at 4:30, well, Ava usually takes a nap anywhere from 1-3 to 2-4 (often times even later), so I knew that wasn’t going to be possible if I wanted to have any hope of her walking down the isle, so at 11:15 I strapped her in her carseat and drove her around the great metropolis of Callahan until she fell asleep. She did eventually and I carried her inside and let her sleep on our bed since we had company over and didn’t want to risk her waking up.

She took a good nap and woke up about 2:00, right before Adam had to be at the church. However, she must have woke up in the worst mood I had ever seen her in. She just cried and cried and cried, and didn’t want anyone to hold her except me, she wouldn’t even get near Adam. At this point I was completely stressed and debated whether or not we would even make the wedding…she didn’t want to get dressed, she didn’t want to do anything other than cry and whine. Finally, since Adam wasn’t home to help and I was completely exasperated, I held her down and forced her to put her tights and shoes one and a little dress that I was going to let her wear until we got to the church. She screamed and kept fighting, but eventually I had her halfway dressed.

When we got to the church, she still didn’t want anything to do with her ‘Cinderella’ dress or bow and refused to do anything other than sit in my lap. We sat in the sanctuary and I had Adam sit on the stage hoping she would make her way up to the stage by herself, well- that wasn’t going to happen, she didn’t get more than 2 steps away from me before she would turn around and run back. I finally convinced her to put her dress and jewelry on and we walked around the church for a few minutes.

When I saw the other flower girl, who was 6, I asked her to take Ava and show her how to walk down the isle and thank goodness she did! Ava started to cry for me and she kept pulling her down the isle, and before I could blink, I think they had walked up and down the isle 20 times, with Ava just a laughing. At this point I was thinking she just might do it, but I also knew a sanctuary with no one in it was a lot different than a sanctuary filled with people.

When it came time for the wedding, I let Jenny send her down the isle while I sat up front and just crossed my fingers, she started walking and didn’t like the idea of throwing flowers at first, but once she realized it was okay, she threw a handful down all at once, I think they were all out of flowers before they were halfway down the isle. The last hurdle (well at least what I thought was the last hurdle) was at the turn. There was a turn in the isle that had a set of steps at the front of it and she had stopped there before and played on it, well, this time was no different, she took a seat and just sat there, I looked at Adam who was standing up front with a panic look and thought, that’s as far as she makes it….well the rest of them kept walking and she eventually got up and followed and she even kept walking right past me and her grandparents (shocking!!) When she got to the foot of the stairs she stepped on a metal plate that made a noise and kept stomping on it, apparently she didn’t see this during rehearsal, once she had done that a couple of times, she saw the candles lining the steps and tried to blow them out- which at this point, I gave Adam the eye and he grabbed her and lifted her up to the top step where her Aunt Stacey picked her up and held her until the first prayer when I grabbed her and we eventually ended up walking out because she just wasn’t going to sit there quietly.

Moral of the story: She’s 2, and I have no idea what she is going to do

2nd Moral of the story: It is much more stressful to have your 2 year old daughter be a flower girl that it was to be the bride- I wasn’t this stressed at my own wedding!!! By the end of the night I was plum worn out!