Driving Down Expectations

(When my husband and I got engaged, we asked our best friends, who happened to be married to each other, to be our best man and matron of honour. They’re lovely people, but a bit scatterbrained. We’d asked, months before, if they’d mind driving us around on our wedding day — to the photograph spot, to the reception, that kind of thing. They said that would be fine. This happened the night before the wedding.)

Matron Of Honour: “What are you guys going to drive around in tomorrow?”

Me: “You said you’d drive us in your car, remember?”

Matron Of Honour: “What? Oh, no, that won’t do at all. You need a white limo.”

Best Man: “Yeah, you can do a lot better than our car.”

Me: “Um, no, your car is fine.”

Matron Of Honour: “But it’s all dirty! We haven’t cleaned it in months!”

Best Man: *nods*

Me: *thinking* “You’ve known about this for ages… but you obviously forgot.” *saying* “That’s okay. We don’t care.”

Matron Of Honour: “No, no, you need a limo!” *grabs Yellow Pages*

Me: “[Matron Of Honor], it’s currently 10:30 pm on a Friday.”

Matron Of Honour: *starting to dial phone* “So?”

Best Man: “Yeah, so?”

Me: “So… no limo companies will be open.”

Matron Of Honour: “You don’t know that. …. Huh, it’s just ringing and ringing and no one is answering. I’ll try another.”

(I finally convinced them to give up, telling them over and over that their car would be fine. MOH still kept muttering “But you should have a limo.” By the way, they weren’t exaggerating about the state of the car – it was very dirty and had loads of fast food wrappers all over the back seat. Not exactly what I’d had in mind!)