Barbara was nervous as hell on her wedding day. Not because she was unsure about getting married to the love of her life, Larry, but because this was the first time she would meet his mother. Larry had always held this off with various excuses, but now he had no choice anymore.
But Barbara would soon find out why that Larry had a very good reason for keeping his mother away from the relationship…
Barbara could barely believe what she was witnessing. In her mind, she had run through a million possible scenarios for when she would meet Larry’s mother, but this was something she could not have expected in a million years.
Larry was trying to calm barbara down the best he could, but there was no stopping all the emotions that came pouring out of the poor woman. She was standing on the altar with tears streaming down her face…
Barbara started screaming at the guest that the wedding needed to be stopped before running off, crying her eyes out…
But why did Barbara have such an emotional reaction to Larry’s mother? Who was she, and had Larry hidden the woman for so long?
Barbara had been the happiest woman ever since her boyfriend of almost two years asked her to marry him. She was delighted about the turn of things because being with Larry forever has been one of her greatest desires. But as happy as she was, there were still some questions in her head that she couldn't answer or take her mind off.
Barbara's doubt resulted from a particular thing that differentiated her relationship with Larry from every other love affair she'd had in the past. Her relationship with Larry differed from others because he didn't really want to involve her in his family. Whenever the issue was raised, Larry always responded that his action was because he didn't have the best relationship with his family.
As much as Larry said he didn't have a great relationship with his family, he visited them relatively frequently. Initially, Barbara didn't bother much about Larry's actions, especially as no one likes meeting their family-in-law. But as time passed and things got more serious, she felt she needed to figure out what was happening.
Not long after Larry proposed to Barbara, she asked if she could finally meet his parents. At the time, they had gotten more intimate, so much so that he had even requested her hand in marriage before her father. Based on the level they were in their relationship, Barbara felt knowing his family shouldn't be a problem at all.
At Barbara's request, Larry showed displeasure and was utterly against it. His reaction seemed strange to Barbara, and she couldn't hide her surprise. Seeing the change in Barbara's facial expression, Larryresponded that there was really no need and that he was afraid they might not get along. At Larry's explanation, Barbara felt like she had no other choice than to go along with his decision in the meantime.
Larry left most of the wedding planning work to Barbara. The situation wasn't a bad idea for her as Larry had been busy with his job and was saving up for the wedding. Moreover, Barbara loved the process of wedding planning, and so, as stressful as the planning was, she kept at it with all joy and enthusiasm.
Since Larry just made provision for the money that was needed for the wedding to be successful without bothering about the plan itself, Barbara was free to make some plans behind his back. Doing that was easy for her as she didn't have to get any approval from Larry before making decisions or arrangements. For now at least...
While planning the wedding, Barbara couldn't keep the thought of the absence of Larry's family off her mind. As a result of her thoughts about the situation, she got more interested to know his family, particularly his parents. She thought that since Larry didn't want to introduce her to them, she would do the introduction herself by inviting them to the ceremony.
Even though she was determined to invite Larry's family to the wedding in order meet them, Barbara was certain she would encounter some challenges. The first obstacle to her decision was her need to get in contact with them. This was tricky for her as she had no contact information about any of Larry's family members.
Reaching out to one of Larry's family members was more difficult than she had thought. This was because Larry was not on any social media platform, so there was no potential connection through usual ways. Also, his last name was very generic that googling it gave at least a million results. As soon as she began to feel discouraged about the situation, she found another method.
As Barbara was about to give up reaching Larry's family, she remembered that Larry had been going to the same family doctor for not less than 15 years. Even when his family moved out of town, they didn't change the doctor and instead found a way to be able to keep consulting the same practitioner.
At the time, Barbara was still Larry's emergency contact at the hospital. She thought that most likely the contact had been one of his parents before the time they met and were starting to get more serious. If it were not his parent's contact, it would at least be that of any other relative or one of his old friends, right?
Barbara thought that reaching out to the person that had been Larry's previous emergency contact would enable her to get the communication with Larry's family going. After being absoluetly sure that this is a good lead to follow, Barbara made a call to the family doctor with the hope that he would give her a person's contact information.
To get the contact information, Barbara made up an excuse by telling the doctor that she needed the old emergency information to ask this person where they were registered now. She further explained that this action was necessary as she desired to replace Larry's emergency contact , since they were both getting married soon.
Luckily for Barbara, her explanation seemed logical to the family doctor, so he saw nothing wrong with her request. Due to this, he gave the old emergency number without hesitation. When Barbara learned that the contact number was for Larry's mother, her heart skipped a beat.
Immediately she got a phone number and it felt as if she had to call her that minute. Barbara wanted to call the woman so badly since she had so much to ask. At the same time, she feared that there might be a lot of questions and confusion from her end. Due to these thoughts, she decided it would be easier if she would just sent a text message.
Without hesitation, she began to draft the message. In the text, she introduced herself as Larry's fiance and mentioned that they were getting married. After sending the message, Barbara couldn't help but wonder why Larry didn't want to introduce her to his family. Despite all this, she was determined to invite his family to the wedding.
After a couple of hours, Barbara got a response from the number she had sent the text message to. The woman was surprised when she received the response, as it was a lot shorter than expected, considering all the questions that were included in her previous text. The person responded by thanking her and affirming they would be at the wedding.
The fact that the reply to her message was short added to Barbara's wondering about the situation. She had expected that the woman would want to know everything about her as she had always wanted to know about Larry's mother. Again, she thought that Larry had probably already told his mother every detail about her.
Barbara thought even further that maybe the mother's response was a result of the opinion she had made already about her from Larry's stories. So, a decision might have already been made to dislike her. Barbara found it very difficult to deal with that particular thought, just shortly before the wedding would be taking place.
Based on the casual response from Larry's mother, Barbara decided not to search anymore for more of Larry's relatives' contact information online. Instead, she decided to focus on the wedding. The woman concluded that, if she met with his side of the family on the wedding day, she would make sure they left the day with a great impression of her.
With the wedding now only a couple of days away, Barbara and her fiancé were fully involved in planning out the remaining details. Even though they were so much together now and making sure that everything was going to be perfect, Barbara had not told Larry yet about her inviting his side of the family as well.
She had no idea if he knew or not, since his mother could obviously have told him about it. But, judging by his calm and relatively normal behavior, she suspected that he was completely clueless. This was strange to her, because what mother would not speak to her son about this if they truly talked that often?
According to Larry, in the period since she had contacted his mother last week, he had gone to visit the unknown woman already three times. One of those times had even been a full family gathering that had taken the whole evening where she had obviously not been invited to. How could this not have come up there?
On the one hand, the concerned and soon to be wed woman really wanted to talk to Larry about this. On the other hand, Barbara was afraid that he could still call off his family if she would. It was a strange situation. Her best chance at him not blocking this meeting would be to let them just show up at the wedding.
Luckily, she managed to keep this secret safe from Larry until the wedding day. She had told a couple of her close friends, but it seemed as if they had held their tongues as well. That morning Barbara woke up nervous as one could be. Not because of the wedding itself, but because of possibly meeting Larry’s family.
She could not very much hide her nerves from him, and yet he thought little of it. It actually only made sense in his eyes that Barbara was shaking of excitement due to this day of celebration. Additionally, he realized that Barbara having to organize everything must have had stressful times as well.
The event had started. Barbara and Larry had made their way to the venue early enough to be able to greet al the guests personally as they were flooding in. It was amazing for Barbara to have all of her friends and family come to her day of celebration, although what she really wanted was for her plan to be revealed. But she got disappointed.
When most of the guests had come in, the bride quickly noticed that she knew everybody there so far. Not a single person from Larry’s family had shown up yet, while she had expected at least 20 people from his side of the family. It had been more than half an hour now since the last guest had come in. Her hope disappeared.
Even though everyone else from the invitation list had arrived in festive clothes, she was a bit indignant. Were they not going to show up at all? Did Larry’s mother maybe not spread the invitation or did everybody there just decided not to come? Unfortunately, she couldn't share these feelings with the love of her life.
Barbara was getting very disappointed, but still she did not want to let this know to Larry. He was really enjoying himself, as in his eyes, everything was going as expected and smooth sailing. While she persistently kept standing at the entrance of the reception, he had no idea that anybody else was suppose to show up.