Carol’s Column

Gearing up for my son's Caribbean splicing not easy

My son is getting married on a small island called St Thomas in the Caribbean.

It's a traumatic thing for a mother to be gaining a new daughter-in-law, her parents, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews and dog called Boris.

Naturally, I wanted to look particularly good for the occasion. This is, after all, the first of my many sons to be casting away his bachelorhood and getting spliced.

As you've probably noticed, Africa south of the Limpopo has turned winterish. In fact south of the Orange River it's freezing. So it has been difficult finding appropriate light-weather apparel suitable for a tropical wedding.

We had thought we'd come ultra casual. My son told us that it was a really informal affair, so informal that the little synagogue in which they're getting married has a sand floor.

“Groovy,” said my mother, the groom's grandmother who is 84.

Groovy?

Then I spoke to my son's mother-in-law to be and discovered her husband will be wearing a Palm Beach type suit, while she will be in something flowing and diaphanous “chiffony” she said.

She added she'd be wearing a hat.

“A hat?” I said.

“Yes, I'm definitely a hat person. Are you a hat person?” she wanted to know.

“Yes, I'm also definitely a hat person,” I replied, thinking of my many hats.

The crushed baobab bark hat I bought in Zimbabwe just after the country became independent. The blue-and-white striped hat I wear to rugby when the team used to be called Western Province plays in the vicinity. My peaked Transvaal baseball cap I wore when watching the kids at one sport or another.

Then there's my South African flag hat with the floppy brim I always wear when travelling, and an ancient faded cloth cap I wear in game reserves and while hiking.

“Yes, I'm also a hat person,” I reiterated.

“So,” I said later to my husband after he had imbibed a whisky and mellowed, “we have to find you a nice Palm Beach suit.”

“A what?” he asked.

“You know, a light, casual white or creamy beige linen suit that they wear in the tropics.”

“You mean a khaki safari suit? You know I hate safari suits. I'll wear my shorts and a T-shirt.”

“You cannot wear shorts that you played rugby in over 40 years ago to your oldest son's wedding,” I said with asperity. “They sag.”

“So do I,” he retorted most accurately, I thought.

Anyway, I have to report that in the whole of Cape Town there was just one Palm Beach type of suit. However, it was severely disabled being three sizes too large and with four buttons instead of three. “Very trendy,” the salesman told my husband. “The latest in fashion.”

Okay, he's had it altered and he looks quite nice. A sort of cross between a member of the Mafia and a used car salesman.

I haven't been as fortunate. While in Johannesburg, I scoured the shops looking for something light and chiffony, the same in Durban and in Cape Town.

All I found in Durban was a broken knuckle (fighting off a mugger), while in Cape Town I have developed a pimple the size of a carbuncle on my cheek.

I keep telling myself that nobody will notice me, it is the bride and the groom they'll be looking at. So who cares if I walk down the aisle starkers wearing a splint on my hand, a South African flag hat and a carbuncle-sized pimple on my cheek?

My lad said he wanted things casual.

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