#6: Kristy's Big Day
Here we are at BSC author Ann M. Martin's favorite BSC book! It's time for Kristy's mom to marry Watson Brewer! They've finally set a date (the third Saturday in September) and they want all the kids to be involved - Charlie will give Edie away, Sam will be best man, Kristy will be a bridesmaid, Karen will be the flower girl, and David Michael the ring bearer. (Shy little Andrew doesn't really want to participate.) Kristy is super excited about being a bridesmaid, which is strange because it involves wearing a dress and flowery things and that is usually not her jam. It's a whole new Kristin Amanda Thomas!
Oh, but wait... there are kinks in the plan. Kristy's mom is getting sent on a business trip the week of the wedding, and someone has bought their house already and needs them to be out within a month. All of a sudden, the wedding is moved to only two and a half weeks away, and the Thomases will have to move in with the Brewers months ahead of schedule. Kristy is not pleased - she wants one more summer on Bradford Court with Mary Anne, Claudia, and the BSC. But her mom is pretty no-nonsense and she's just like "SHIT HAPPENS, KRISTY."
The other BSCers are as excited about the wedding as Kristy and ooh and ahh over her getting to be a bridesmaid. In other "really, Kristy?" news, she goes to another dance with the "pest" Alan Gray, saying that at the Final Fling he was "fifty percent pesty and fifty percent fun" (page 34). Stacey went with Pete Black and Claudia with new-kid-in-school Austin Bentley. Instead of going to the Final Fling, Mary Anne and Dawn went out for pizza with their parents. Um... cool.
Kristy gets home to find her mother dealing with yet another crisis. There are some family and friends coming in to help with the wedding, which is great - but all fourteen of their children will be underfoot and need care. Kristy, of course, has a great idea - hire the Baby-sitters Club to watch the kids all week! Mrs. Thomas agrees, and said she and Watson'll pay the club $600 for Monday-Friday 9-5. Kristy's jaw drops - $120 for each member. (Big bucks in 1986! And today, for a twelve-year-old.) Kristy quickly gets the other members of the BSC on board, and they get to work making plans, splitting the charges into groups based on age, and divvying up different tasks.
When Kristy's family comes to town, she notices how crazy it is with eight kids all interacting - and that's with the adults right there! What will happen when it's fourteen kids and the five twelve-year-old members of the BSC? I guess we'll find out...
Monday morning at 9am sharp, shit starts to get real. The kids are all dropped off and with them are a bevy of instructions: nap times, medications, allergies... Kristy realizes they haven't childproofed the house and she has no idea where everyone is going to nap. But the BSC is magic, as we all know, and they get down to business. They get all the whiny kids to stop crying and get everyone involved in story time or arts and crafts. By the end of the day they have fourteen happy children. Oh, BSC... always so impressive. Tuesday has one hiccup: Karen Brewer convinces David Michael, Berk, and all the kids at the playground that martians are going to land on earth that night and that everybody has to take cover that night. She scares the crap out of everyone and gets kicked out of the playground. Dawn is not smiles times as she drags them away.
Stacey takes her group of the oldest kids to see "Mary Poppins" at a local theater, but runs into some trouble - one of the kids can't find her money, then the kids take forever getting snacks, so they get into the movie late, and then one of them spills sticky Junior Mints over the balcony, leading to a giggling fit that gets them ushered right out of the theater. Stacey is mortified. How dare they upset my queen?! Speaking of mortified... Kristy and Mary Anne have to take the six boys to the barber to get pre-wedding haircuts and all the boys act like little shits. Kristy has to keep threatening to call disciplinarian Nannie and calling them out for being rude. But somehow, everyone survives.
The last day of their baby-sitting week is a rainy one. D'oh! But it's all good - the girls convince the kids to put on their own wedding. Karen and David Michael play the bride and groom and everyone takes a different role in the ceremony. Then it's time to get everyone dressed up and off to the rehearsal dinner! It goes fine until Karen finds out she'll be carrying white rose petals as the flower girl, and she freaks out because she thinks her "white magic" will clash with next-door-witch-neighbor Morbidda Destiny's "black magic" and there will be some big ka-boom-iness. Watson is like, "SHUT IT, KAREN," but we all know that Karen can't shut it for long.
Karen has a Morbidda Destiny moment at the wedding, but luckily it comes after the bride and groom kiss, so it doesn't mess the whole thing up. Damn, Karen. Kristy gets emotional as Edie and Watson cut the cake and she realizes their families are intertwined. Calm down, Kristy.
