Chapter 12: The Wedding Ceremony

After getting used to the idea of a daughter who wants to live as a dog on a leash, finding out I also have a gay daughter is nothing!

Celeste couldn’t spend nearly as long with us as I would have wanted, but she did say she was proud of me for crawling out of the hole I’d put myself in. I found that praise to be a double edged sword.

I’d never sought anyone’s approval before except recently Herbert’s - certainly not my own children’s and although I didn’t agree I’d ever crawled into a hole, I could see now why she would think that, so I took the compliment as it was intended. In a way, that was new to me too.

She also specifically apologized to Herbert for ghosting us (that’s where I first heard the term but its meaning is self explanatory).

I was saddened to learn that she’d ostracized herself from the whole family because she ‘knew’ we’d never support her being a lesbian and that hurt. There were lesbians that attended our church! I didn’t say anything about that for fear of her getting angry and once more breaking contact.

I eventually did get to explain our reason for visiting her store and that her sister was getting married. Celeste wanted Spot’s phone number and that required a brief explanation that she didn’t own a cell phone but she could be reached via Steve.

Celeste picked up on my embarrassment at having to provide Steve’s cell phone number and I was content to let Spot share her chosen circumstances personally.

We left Celeste’s store with some very daring lingerie - daring not just to me but just plain daring. A pair of crotchless panties and a shelf bra kind of daring. I think Celeste gifted the matching combo to me as a kind of test to see if I would balk at the gifts. I got another hug and Herbert got an ‘I love you’ that brought tears to his eyes and a very heartfelt assurance that he loved her too.

We didn’t do any more shopping after that - it would have detracted from our meeting with Celeste. We didn’t even go to a restaurant for supper. Instead we got carryout and headed straight home. I sat in the passenger seat staring for a long time on the ride, just staring at my phone where Celeste had programmed her number in.

I gave thanks to God over and over, any reservations I’d held onto that I was being led astray by the devil completely vanquished. God was rewarding me for finally seeing the light.

The next three months went by in a blur. Celeste and Spot had their reunion, I met Tiffany and Mia, Celeste’s wife and adopted daughter, Spot made final decisions on what her and her bridesmaids would wear and although unthinkable to my former self, the new me was quite thrilled at Spot’s choices.

Of course those choices had to be approved by Steve and that grated a little. A wedding is about the bride. The groom is supposed to be at the church on time, dressed for the part and knows nothing else about the bride’s surprises. With Steve approving her and her bridesmaids outfits, it detracted from the magic a little. But I didn’t protest. Too much.

I also abstained from attending the hens party although Herbert went to the stag party and came home looking a little shell shocked. For me, I had a premonition that the bridesmaids would have more fun without me. I had ‘chilled out’ a lot but nothing like the level those girls were on.

I wouldn’t have put it past any of them to at some point find themselves all nude in mixed company. That was not something I was yet willing to participate in, even as an observer. The after party weighed heavily on my mind as it was.

The only other noteworthy point in that vein was that Celeste and Tiffany DID attend the hens party while I babysat Mia. I returned Mia to Celeste and her wife the next afternoon and both her and her fem wife had hickies all over their necks.

I didn’t ask although Celeste saw me looking and volunteered that neither got hickies from each other. I asked her to please not explain.

I almost got a preview of the bride’s, maid of honor and bridesmaids outfits before the wedding. Unlike a standard everyday wedding, the maid of honor and bridesmaids were not all dressed alike.

While I already had a good idea of what Spot would wear, her final choices had been made without me. My daughter was not being mean to me by not modeling her gown for me - she’d already made it clear there was not going to BE a gown, but we’d talked and I admitted I could not be an impartial judge of her outfit so she’d consulted instead with her maid of honor and bridesmaids.

This exclusion didn’t upset me like it would have the old Marian. Spot gratefully accepted my regrets about not being the best source of inspiration and style and instead, kept me abreast of the discussions and experimentation her and the other girls had done while keeping me away from those discussions and experiments.

I know I would have had heartfelt opinions that would have irritated Spot and driven a wedge between us and being kept partially ignorant would make for an exciting entrance when she got to the church.

Old Marian would have been appalled at her final ensemble and even now, I’d been of the opinion that the maid of honor should be dressed identically to the bridesmaids so as not to upstage the bride.

Spot had simply told me that she was going to be Steve’s puppy wife and as such, would naturally be upstaged by every female in attendance and that was the way it should be. I disagreed of course.

Spot insisted that she was not having a marriage ceremony to be the center of attention like a regular bride at a regular wedding and although she would indeed BE the center of attention because of that fact, she didn’t intend to rub it in either her maid of honor or any of her bridesmaids’ faces. Her maid of honor would therefore be dressed the most spectacularly.

I understood that more when she revealed her final vision for the ceremony. I did get to help with that and it felt like staging one of the pornographic shows she did online.

Old Marian would have headed for the hills when she found out what Spot wanted. The new me just wanted Spot to be happy and once I’d cleared it with pastor Leon, I was as gung ho as the rest of the bridal party.

The final rehearsal for the wedding was not a dress rehearsal; that was because Steve wanted the whole production to be a surprise to those helping with the rehearsal, yet not in the immediate party.

The music on the day of the wedding itself was as traditional as it gets. The old pipe organ was playing standard pre-wedding melodies while the guests found their seats. Once pastor Leon and I were satisfied that everyone who was planning to be there was seated, he shut the doors and walked me to my seat of honor.

I began counting down in my head and right on cue, the main doors slammed open as if a bomb had gone off, startling everyone seated. Even I jumped in my seat and I knew what to expect.

The boom was the equivalent to the first note of a song by the rock and roll band AC/DC that had been and was still popular with young people. No one present had probably ever heard it played on a pipe organ, though. As people craned their necks to see the doors that had caught them all off guard, the notes to the song Thunderstruck boomed out over the pews and the maid of honor made her entrance in full pony regalia.

Her outfit was almost iridescent white, but modified to keep her privates including her nipples, fully covered. In her full outfit, she was more than six and a half feet tall, excluding the plumage that added another eighteen inches to her height. No one could ever say they missed that entrance!

Fran wore a full bridle and bit in her mouth and two steps into the church, she paused her forward movement but continued to high step, her tail swishing from side to side in time with the music.

Reins were connected to her leather and polished brass bridal and they were held by the best man who stood behind the bridesmaids.

Each bridesmaid wore a white latex bikini and all of them were on all fours. To me, their accessories denoted their fetish, although Angel’s fox accessories were very similar to Mary’s.

Mary had cat ears pinned to her head, a cat collar and a huge fluffy tail that had to have wire or something in it to make it curve up and over her back the way it did. The tail disappeared between her cheeks through a hole in the back of her PVC bikini bottoms.

Patty was body-painted white with black spots and her bikini bra could barely contain her massive breasts that are at least as big as mine. Her tail was comparatively thin and spindly and hung down, almost to the ground. Her bikini pants were almost like a diaper keeping her massive bottom covered.

All three bridesmaids had leashes connected to them but Patty’s was connected to her nose ring. All the leashes were held by the groomsmen who wore tuxedos with tails. They all looked stunning and based on the collective gasp from the audience, everyone else thought so too.

The octet made their way to the front of the church managing to look exquisite in every way to me. Even the leashes seemed to be ‘proper’ in the fashion they were being utilized.

I know half the congregation had to be double guessing their decision to be present, especially Phyllis, the new unofficial leader of the Women’s League (after I’d declined the opportunity).

I’d seen her take a seat in the back row wearing her own qwedding ‘uniform’, a lace covered satin dress that was as close to being a wedding dress itself as it was possible to get, along with white gloves and a wide brimmed hat with its own ostrich feather decollage. Her outfit screamed that she wanted to be the center of attention but today that would be impossible.

Just like at a Sunday service, there were those wearing their Sunday best sitting next to those in jeans and tee shirts. Some attendees’ choice of attire openly advertised that they worked with or knew Spot and Steve professionally. Those attendees had garnered their own volume of interest, especially Mei Ling sitting on her boyfriend’s lap with a pacifier in her mouth.

In Phyllis’ case though, she sat one seat in from the aisle and on her left, the aisle seat, was her husband, Walter, a mousy man in his well-worn black suit. That woman certainly ruled their roost and it was well known that Walter’s only task was to agree with everything she did and said. She didn’t even let him own a brand new suit for fear of upstaging her outfits.

I’d once been a little jealous that Phyllis had such an agreeable husband. Now I better appreciate Herbert’s independent mind. Without it, things would never have changed in my own life.

Still, Phyllis could be a problem at this non-traditional wedding and I was glad that on her other side, Larry and his partner Eric, had intentionally positioned themselves to be able to quickly and quietly intervene should such become necessary. They were huge fans of Spot.

When I say fans, they’d literally introduced themselves to Spot as such on her third Sunday at church.

Discovering that homosexuals watched pornography had been difficult to accept back then, but not as hard as hearing them openly admit to participating in such activity.

I’d been at a loss for words at the time! Now, I was simply glad of their attendance.

There were certainly a lot of young people in attendance too. Some were the children of members of the church but many I’d never laid eyes on before.

Pastor Leon had, three weeks ago, committed his entire sermon to love, understanding and tolerance. I’d since found out that his service podcast had been a huge hit in the greater community and attendance had skyrocketed as a result of his use of Steve and Spot’s upcoming nuptials as an example of how the church needs to support alternative lifestyles that hurt no one and only benefitted diversity.

Pastor Leon’s warning that this was to be somewhat of a departure from common standards had created so much local interest that pastor Leon had been forced to produce a second short podcast explaining what attendees could expect to witness in the house of the Lord so that they could make a determination about attending or even allowing family members to do so.

Of course there had been outrage, as much from outside the church as from within. People had their own opinions of what should and should not be allowed in a house of God and many of the loudest voices within the church were from those same parishioners who strongly supported our Bingo nights - an activity that pastor Leon was publicly against as a form of gambling.

He allowed it because the church council insisted no harm could come from winning as much as ten dollars in an evening and pastor Leon refused to mandate that his personal feelings be shared by everyone.

I’d learned that the same argument had been used to sway the council into approving this ceremony but I also noted a lack of councilmember attendance. In a way that was good, because I hadn’t seen an empty seat left with family and friends of the bride and groom plus church members as well as interested locals filling every spot available. All 232 pew seats taken plus a dozen or so standing at the sides.

Anyway, at a guess, I’d say there were fifteen or twenty boys’ heads in the audience, all clearly eager to see and take mental photographs of women in bikinis on their hands and knees as those women crawled past the boys’ pews.

Many of those boys weren’t relying on mental pictures, either. I saw dozens of cell phones all around the church, many held be women, recording the procession and the ushers were kept very busy keeping people in their seats.

Everyone wanted a good look, either to convince themselves that what they were witnessing was really happening or for more nefarious reasons such as lust.

I knew what was going through the congregation’s heads and it was causing me some internal strife. Some of them like me would understand the innocence in what they were witnessing but others would see the devil at work in our own church.

A long glance to the back of the church confirmed Phyllis in animated discussion with Larry. I could imagine Larry attempting to educate Phyllis and I think I saw the exact moment when he called her out on her dirty mind.

She seemed to stop mid sentence, raised her hand as if to slap Larry, then slowly lowered it again. Her lips tightened and she proceeded to stare straight ahead as if willing pastor Leon up front to notice her and possibly stop the ceremony.

When I looked back to the front, I saw pastor Leon scowl briefly toward the back of the church before his eyes roamed back to the women and men coming down the aisle.

As I watched, the bridesmaids and groomsmen passed my seat and moved to the bride’s side of the aisle so the groomsmen could unleash the girls before taking up their posts on the groom’s side. I reflected on how different this could have been.

For one, I wouldn’t even be sitting here or if I had been forced to be, I would have either been catatonic or I would have been praying like a madwoman that God wouldn’t strike them all down with multiple bolts of lightning.

But thanks to Steve, Spot, pastor Leon, Art, Herb, Mary, Patty, Celeste, others, but most of all, my wonderful husband Herbert, I was a woman with a new lease on life and a very different sense of what it takes to be a good Christian woman these days.

I’d had had strong words with the other members of what we all called the Women’s League; a group of seven church members who had taken it upon ourselves to be the moral compass of the church congregation and as such I’d come to discover we were a pain in the neck to every other member of the congregation.

We’d all been self righteous narrow-minded bigots and two of the groups’ women had resigned their membership after I’d discovered they had planned to create a scene here today.