A Country Wedding to Remember

A Country Wedding to Remember

By Constance Chatfield-Taylor

It was Sunday of a not so long past Labor Day weekend. We had just finished riding and were standing in the middle aisle, a beautiful breeze coming through the barn. We were hot and sweaty, discussing the polo match we had just played, and plans for the rest of the weekend.

With the tight turn-around, I told them we needed the full four hours to clean. Hang out at the pool, I suggested, until the cleaning crew was done.

I was laughing with my teammates and checked my phone again. There were two texts. The first was from Michelle, the current guest, was sent at 11:30 a.m.. “Hey, I’m so sorry I completely forgot to ask if I could stay here, only until 2 p.m. or so. We’re getting ready for my wedding this afternoon. I’m so sorry – so many details and it completely slipped my mind. Doing hair and makeup!”

Wedding?

The next text was from the cleaning crew saying that there were a lot of people at the house. What should they do? It was now 12:15 and I was 25 minutes away.

I sent two texts. The first to the bride: “No, there are guests coming in, it needs to be cleaned, move out of the upstairs and then the rest of the house, pronto.” The other, to the cleaning crew: “start cleaning the upstairs, please.”

I ran down the hill to the car, throwing my mallets and helmet in the back and jumping in with my boots and kneepads on, visualizing eight girls with suitcases and hair stuff and makeup and bridesmaids dresses and a billowing wedding gown churning around the 1740 house.

When I got back to the house, there were 14 cars in the parking lot.

I clomped into the great room in my sweaty jeans and dirty boots, just my eyes showing above my Covid mask. There were two makeup stations set up, one in front of the big stone fireplace, the other by the window. The two makeup artists turned slowly, looked at me and casually turned back to their charges on the bar stools.

Large ring lights illuminated the girls. The stylists had brushes and jars and cases full of color and powder. Music blared from wireless boom boxes. Think “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees, or “Dancing Queen.”

I looked at one of the girls and yelled over the music, “Are you the bride?” She pointed slowly to the adjacent study, her shoulders moving to the music. Both the girls on the stools had on silk boy shorts with matching tops, an island theme, I wondered? Their bare feet with perfectly manicured toes clutched the bottom rungs.

Following directions, I walked to the small adjacent wood paneled study with the hunting prints, a fireplace flanked by club chairs, the bar set up behind the love seat.

A photographer stood in the corner, and girls were on bar stools from the kitchen—more makeup stations, and satin boy shorts.

Everywhere.

Again, I paused and asked “Are you the bride?” to one of the silk pajama girls. She pointed to another who lifted her chin and said, “Yes, I’m the bride,” crossing her legs and tucking her bare feet under her.

“We’re all cleared out of upstairs,’ she said with a demure smile. “I’m so sorry.”

“Let’s just get through this,’ I said, then headed out of the room to find the cleaning crew.

From the living room came a great billowing fog floating out the door from multiple hairdryers, smelling of conditioner and shampoo and hair spray. More silk short boy shorts and stylists were visible through the mist. They were everywhere.

The cleaning crew was coming downstairs, three instead of the usual two.

“We finished upstairs,” they said.

Great!

I moved the hair people out of the living room and moved the cleaning crew in, then returned to the study. I opened the old door with the heavy, original 1740 lock and started ushering the girls with the suitcases out that rarely used door.

Now, more girls were hovering. I counted 16, then stopped counting. Most had on identical silk short pajamas and all were beautiful. Frankly, I couldn’t tell one from another because now their hair all looked the same, too.

The makeup crew in the main great room seemed totally unimpressed with my deadline and told me they’d be finished in another 15 minutes max. Seriously? How long does it take to do makeup? Eventually, all the girls and stylists and makeup artists were on the screened porch, still with no sense of urgency, all with beautiful bare feet, now around the long table. They had cleaned out the fridge and picked up odds and ends and had most everything on the porch.

They were now getting little sprigs of identical white flowers, baby’s breath, I think, put in their hair. They were chatting and laughing because they were having a portrait done in the boy shorts. They would change to their bridesmaids and wedding dresses at the venue, YAY!!!!.

I checked my phone and saw it was now 2:15. The other guests were supposed to arrive at 2 and there was no parking at the pool or anywhere that would make sense. The Georgia couple was looking to get away from it all and wanted peace and quiet.

I herded the girls off the porch with the photographers and wedding planner and stylists. The satin boy-shorts girls with flowers in their hair walked down the flagstone steps pulling their enormous suitcases bop, bop, bop. They were all in their bare feet, inching their way across the gravel to their cars.

The cleaning crew, meanwhile, was finishing in the kitchen. They had returned all the furniture to its normal place. One cleaner was at the pool arranging the chairs, the other was working on the outside pavilion. It was now 2:30 and cars were pulling away slowly, one after another.

I turned around as the last car left, walked to the house, wrote the cleaning crew a check and collapsed in the nearest chair on the porch. And at that very moment, a white jeep pulled into the area down by the pool and parked.

Still polo sweaty and dirty, my boots and knee guards were off. Did I have time to make a run for it? No. As they walked up the stairs, I stood up and pulled my hair back. “Welcome to the Mill House,” I said, cheerfully. The Georgia couple clearly was grateful to be there. “Thanks for letting us come early,” they said. “No problem,” I said. “Can I show you around?”