My mother-in-law insisted on a They whispered to her you can’t withstand the storm she whispered back I am the storm shirt, so she drove through four parishes until she found a Walmart that was open and selling fabric, and she and her sister-in-law sewed me a beautiful and simple dress in one day. They even made basic belted sheath dresses for my bridesmaids, and as the real flowers we had ordered had gone the way of the cake and the food, we borrowed the fake ones a cousin had used at his wedding. A friend made several cakes, and some relatives got their big pots out and made enough jambalaya for everyone. We had the champagne but not the glasses, and Tony spent $1,500 on all the liquor the gas station had. It was confusing and overwhelming, and I was still trying to process the loss of my first house, the one I never got to live in, but Tony’s mom was like a general. She told me where to be and handled the rest, she even got a friend to come do my hair and makeup. She couldn’t access her tools because her house had flooded, so she teased my hair with a fork!