A lot of planning goes into a wedding. The guest list and invitations, venue, photography, flower arrangements, menu, wedding cake, table settings… But however many plans are made, a hundred other things can come along. Things beyond the scope of the best laid plans.

What wedding planner, for example, could have arranged for a rainbow to arch above the bride and groom at the precise moment the pastor pronounced the two as man and wife? My husband Tom and I shared in the joy and wonder of that very thing this past September. A moment of stunned and united silence before we witnesses in folding chairs stood to cheer the newlyweds’ cheerful exit.

The forecast had warned of the possibility of a stormy afternoon, but the bride had decided to take her chances, bravely choosing a canopy of sky over the less-picturesque pop-up option. A risktaker in white rewarded by rainbow.

In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, I’d had the privilege of preparing, at the couple’s request, a lightly choreographed wedding dance. Our focus had been on their hold and connection with a special desire for a dip at the end (the groom’s idea). The young man learned about the responsibilities of being a leader, in life as well as on the dance floor. And for the young lady, the sometimes more difficult role. A follower has to keep on smiling and believe—with the teacher’s help—her novice dance partner will surely get it right with practice. Or, at least, right enough.

On the day of the wedding, their dance went off with all the sweetness and charm we’d hoped for. The nervous groom, steady. The bride, radiant and graceful. The audience oohing and aahing in all the right places from first step to picture-perfect final-dip end.

And then, only minutes after this triumph, the ceremony’s rainbow-promise benediction failed us all. The grace that held back rain grew thin. Wisps of cotton candy cloud collided and collected, releasing droplets, then drops, then a downward rush that overflowed pretty flower vases and splattered in and over the edges of beautifully stationed dinner plates just waiting to be filled—only not with water.

Those of us who’d brought them popped open umbrellas. The less pessimistically-prepared folks (or perhaps just less attuned to weather possibilities), scattered to sheltered areas to watch the drenching from a distance. My husband, a retired pilot and boy scout who keeps an eye to the sky and dire possibilities, had brought three umbrellas. Two for us and an extra to pass along just in case. The rest huddled under awnings and prayed for the hasty return of quick-drying sunshine, while the umbrellaed guests emptied and overturned place settings, collected napkins, and leaned chairs inward along table edges.

I heard later that this was when the mother-of-the-bride turned her face from the crowd, her sister-in-law whispering sternly, “Keep yourself together.”

At last, having done all we could, we waited and wondered.

How long should we wait?

How long before the food is past being fit to eat?

How long can we be expected to watch and hope under umbrellas and awnings?

 And (this from me) what is my husband up to now?

For Tom had walked over to the DJ for a private conference. He then turned to me, extending a hand beyond the edge of his umbrella, confident his dance-trained wife would rightly respond to the order gentlemanly invitation. So, I tucked into an improvised dance hold for a double-umbrella foxtrot to “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

I knew he didn’t mean to steal the spotlight, but all eyes should have been on the bride and groom, not on an entertaining old man and his slightly embarrassed old lady. This wasn’t our moment. It was theirs. Still, my romantic husband, oblivious to what was certainly clear to everyone else, danced on. And I, obedient follower, did the same.

But old folks, it seems, can sometimes turn a tide. Halfway through the song the grandmother-of-the-bride stepped out with a troupe of small grandchildren in tow. A circle of rain dancers, bare heads to the dripping sky.

What happened after that, I can only liken to a long-remembered Kodak commercial (or was it Kleenex?), back in the days when TV commercials had the power to beckon tears from laundry-folding housewives (at least that’s how it was in my family of origin).

One rainy-day song turned to two, then three, as wedding guests flowed out from their sheltered places to show old Gene Kelly how it can be done en masse. The bride and groom, now center stage, displaying a skillful umbrella dance that left the bride’s carefully-arranged hair and makeup none the worse for weather.

The dancing outlasted the rain, as did the celebratory dinner food. The clouds ceased their leaking, the non-dancing guests jumped out to assist the wait staff in an improv of banquet patio restoration, and the plan was back on course. A fine meal enjoyed, followed by a proper dance, the cutting of the cake, a final toast in which the happily damp and disheveled revelers lifted their glasses to toast a day that hadn’t gone exactly as any person had planned.

A two-becomes-one union under the arcing promise of a rainbow, a dance through untimely rain, and a hearty banquet at the end to celebrate the journey.

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”  Proverbs 19:21