have kindly sponsored

After last week's meeting, I expected a pretty uneventful week as far as the wedding goes. I was quite prepared to concentrate solely on my first full week of teaching practice in the school I have been assigned. But the most interesting turn of the week came in the form of a letter from my father. I had been expecting the letter since the last time I spoke with him. He had said he wanted me to read it closely, but I had no idea that anything more lay within its contents than details on flower arrangements or such.

When I first was planning my wedding with Gareth, we came up with a list of friends and family that amounted to no more than 60 people. We also assumed that at least 20 of those people would not be able to come because they would have to fly in from a different country. But after my dad got a hold of it, the list grew from 60 to 200. Our idea of a small intimate affair was out of the question, so we did our best to incorporate the things we were looking for in the smaller wedding into a bigger event.

But now I have received the strangest of letters, and I have still to discuss it with my father who was out-of-town when I received it. In it he said that he felt I should consider a small wedding and reception in Michigan and then another small reception in London. What happened to my father? Is this the same man I told not to spend so much on the wedding and said back, 'Oh no Stacie, I am really into this now, there is no going back.' (I am making him sound like the Rambo of wedding planners)

I am real curious now. Gareth and I have discussed it and decided that if he in fact does want this that it would be great for us because then our friends here who could not afford to come over could still celebrate with us in London. But we have yet to discuss this with the man in charge and as he wrote the letter two weeks ago now, anything could have happened to change his mind since.

25 October 1999,

Stacie Lewis