With Veil and a Pillowcase

I walk down the dimly lit carpeted stair and pause on the last three steps, my long white train draped artfully behind. This is it, this is the moment. He stands in front of me, mostly calm and collected but I can see a smile building in his blue eyes and at the corners of his lips. He holds out his hand to escort me down, or at least take the wailing flower girl from my tight grip. Behind me stands my sister Katie, barely holding in her pride. Then my mother walks into the living room, looking for some bedding she has misplaced, and gets a glimpse of the three of us poised on the staircase and bursts out laughing. "What have you kids been up to?"
Distracted, I loosen my grip on my bouquet and the flower girl, the bouquet tumbles down to lie at my cousin Nicks feet while the flower girl shoots out of my arms, down the stairs and under a table where he claws madly at the pink tutu that was shoved on him moments before. Nick finally lets go of the laughter he had been holding in check since seeing the cat in a dress, picks up the flowers, grins back up at me and mock bows before handing me the bouquet and leading me the rest of the way down the stairs. A grin spreads across my face as I twirl in front of my mother. "Isn’t it pertty Mommy?" I ask. "Kate made it."

Under closer inspection the gown proves to be made of the missing sheets, pillowcases, and dust ruffle Mom was looking for, held together by ribbons and safety pins. The pillowcases create the front, back and sleeves, while the many sheets and dust ruffle form the skirt and train. A lacey table cloth tops it off as a veil, held in place with a white headband. The flowers reveal themselves to be a graying feather duster taken from the upstairs closet.

Kate starts to explain all this to my mother and I turn back to Nick and give him a small curtsey. "I’m sorry, my dear sir," I say in mock seriousness, "but I cannot marry you today, I am far too young and my flower girl seems to have wandered off."
"It’s okay," he says, kissing my hand, just as serious as I am, "I’ve heard cousins shouldn't marry anyways."

Katie, apparently done talking to mom runs off to get a camera. We fish the cat out from under the table and adjust his outfit while we wait for Kate. When she gets back, we all file back up the stairs and walk down it one more time with Mom at the bottom snapping pictures.  This time instead of seriousness it’s all goof, the ending results now standing in an album in my old room, waiting for the day I want to revisit those memories; A snapshot of an enraged cat literally leaping out of my arms, Kate stealing my veil, Nick mock proposing with the mop, Momma carrying off the bride, the bouquet landing on the cat, and me, smiling and laughing at them all.