"I slow-danced with the wrong mother of the bride for 45 seconds."
Submitted from a Holiday Inn ballroom in Columbus, Ohio. Read time: 4 minutes. Narrated by the confessor.
It was the second slow song of the night. The DJ had dimmed the lights to that particular shade of lavender that signals to every wedding guest over 35 that it is now their constitutional right to find a partner. I had already done the grandmother, the college roommate, and the flower girl (she's eight, she counts).
Then I saw her: tall, elegant, standing alone near the cake table with what I interpreted as the unmistakable posture of a woman who had been waiting all evening for someone to ask. I bowed slightly. She smiled. We began.
About forty-five seconds in, my date — who was sitting at our table with a glass of pinot — leaned over and whispered, with the calm precision of an air-traffic controller: "That's the mother of the bride. You're dancing with the mother of the bride." I said, "That's fine, I'm being polite." She said, "No. The other mother of the bride. The one whose daughter is getting married."
I finished the song. She was lovely about it. The actual mother of the bride still doesn't know, and I am petitioning the universe to keep it that way.
