What went wrong

I'm going to be frank and admit that I can't say much good about my mom's wedding. It's not that it wasn't good; it's just that I didn't realize until I was there how sad I was that my mom remarried and that my parents were never able to work things out. How cliché! I try to be grown up about it and recognize that my parents were just incompatible; I never had any illusions that they would get back together. And my new step-father seems to be a good match for my mom, so I try to be happy for them. It's just... hard.

I'm going to have to delete this post, aren't I?

As far as what did go right, my mom looked beautiful, I'm totally hiring her hairdresser (and maybe her make-up artist) for my wedding, the rabbi was actually kind of funny during the ceremony and not nearly as weaselly as I usually think of him as being (long story there, sorry), and the food was delicious.

As far as what went wrong... well I started to write it out but the list was ridiculous. Basically, most of it could have been resolved with a good wedding coordinator, which I am now going to commit myself to finding. The problems that I imagine could have been solved with a good coordinator: the wilted flowers (maybe a good coordinator would have made sure they made it into a fridge on a 95-degree day), a 2½-hour late caterer (maybe a good coordinator could have run around like a chicken with her head cut off looking for the caterer instead of the groom), the fact that the bridal party didn't get fed before the ceremony or during the cocktail hour (that was an add-on that had been paid for), or that the bride and groom didn't get fed AT ALL during dinner (WTH? and why didn't they tell me?!), or the fact that the open bar for the cocktail hour got closed an hour after the start of the ceremony, not the start of the reception (a good coordinator would hopefully be a good advocate for the bride and groom!).

I specify a good coordinator, because my mom had a bad coordinator. She was associated with the venue, and obviously had no interest in whether the wedding came off well or not. She actually left (for the day) during the ceremony. Who does that???