Empty feeling after wedding is over

The house echoes a bit these days. The corners are bereft of attendant gifts wrapped in patriotic colors and welcoming baskets lined with blue tissue. Only the dust patterns on the table remain of the mountain of fancy dishes, decorations and delicacies reserved for the reception. My endless pages covered with reminders of items “to buy” and lists of things “to do” no longer cover the refrigerator and piano. The year of planning, purchasing and preparing for my daughter’s wedding is over.
Last week, I used my after-wedding exhaustion as an excuse to feed my husband and son the last of the left-over wedding food. Our freezer, deprived of miniature quiches, bite-sized brownies, round loaves of bread, ice cream cups stamped with wedding bells and punch molds has a gaping hole that our modest needs will never fill.
This morning my husband and I sorted through the detritus of used and unused ribbons, silk flowers and pearl beads. We were trying to figure out what to do with all the left-overs. Right now it looks like either future gift recipients will receive very elaborately decorated packages or the grandkids will have a fantastic craft day.
Bit by bit over the past couple months my daughter packed up her books, clothes, shoes, cosmetics and childhood memorabilia and moved them to the house where she and her husband now live. Only her wedding dress and the fancy hangars which once held the nieces’ gowns for the wedding remain. The day after she left with her new husband, her room was re-arranged into a sitting room focusing on great-grandpa Detwiler’s drop-front desk with deep dresser drawers. No traces of her teen-age treasures or college collectibles remain.
I have gone through the house and gathered up bits and pieces of wedding momentoes to take to her: the silver wedding goblets etched with their wedding date, an elaborately scrolled holder for the unity candles, red napkins embossed with a rose and their names, the six bread covers I cross-stitched with patriotic hearts lining baskets of bread at her wedding reception which will now be napkins used with their set of patriotic dishes.
Over the weekend we entered the memory phase of the wedding: the wedding pictures arrived. Monday, I sorted through a mountain of wedding pictures and selected a fifth of them to fill the album I had purchased months ago. I figured 100 photos was plenty enough for most people’s ability to sustain a reasonably polite level of interest. The next 48 hours, I spent way too much time talking my way through the album as I pointed out relatives, special arrangements and candid shots.
Looking at them, I am pleased to realize that we accomplished 95 percent of what we set out to do and 20 percent more than what we originally planned on doing. As my husband said, “the pictures are all we have left.” I know he is right. If a disaster strikes and I have time, the photo albums are the first things I will grab.
I have one last wedding task to do: purchase and fill small photo albums with wedding photos for the members of the wedding party to enjoy. When those are gone, I will dust table tops and empty corners and wonder why the house looks plain.