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while an estimated 750 million people around the world watched on live television, the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
    All of us who saw the pomp and circumstance can probably tell you where we were at the time. Most in the States were in our bathrobes, coffee mugs lifted in salute to the New Era. We were spellbound by the spectacle, the ceremony, the speeches, the music and, most especially—the dress. I’ll bet you can still picture it in your mind—the yards and yards of sumptuous ivory taffeta and lace, a twenty-five-meter train bringing up the rear.
    Never mind all the troubles and tragedy that ensued for the royal couple. All we knew back then was that a real princess was being launched, and weddings would never be the same.
    So pervasive was the influence of this event that even our as-yet-unborn daughters would feel its echo, decades later. I know this was the case in our family. Elizabeth’s determination to own her moment had its roots deep in the romance of that spectacular summer day in London.
    While my vision for my own wedding was preoccupied with outcomes and goals, Elizabeth was determined to embark on the journey of a lifetime in her own way. I shunned the spotlight; she was comfortable at center stage. Fine, I thought. She’s going to do it her way. My job would be to serve as air-traffic controller for all the incoming new people. Or so I thought. Little did I know, we were in for a bumpy ride.
    ELIZABETH
    I feared that introducing our families to each other might be like introducing zebra mussels into a pristine Great Lakes harbor. Toxic. Here’s the thing: I’ve never actually been diagnosed, but I believe that I’m allergic to awkward situations. They give me rashes. Big, ugly red splotches that scream “I’m freakin’ uncomfortable.” And thinking about Dave’s and my parents meeting for the first time gave me hives. After all, I had endeavored to keep my more crass tendencies a secret from the Maas clan, but as soon as they met my bawdy, irrepressible mother, I worried that my cover would be blown.
    I did have an ace in the hole, however. In the first few months after meeting me, Dave’s aunt was over at his house for dinner asking about his New Girlfriend. As you can probably imagine, one of the first things that comes up in conversation about me involves the fact that my mom is a romance writer.
    On learning this, most people raise their eyebrows and commence psychoanalyzing me, the daughter of a novelist: Maybe she’s a precocious vixen who is inappropriately comfortable with words like bosom and shaft (in actuality, my mother tells me her ears bleed when I make the slightest reference to sex). Maybe she’s a spoiled princess, living in the lap of luxury and dining on bonbons as her loincloth-cladbutler fluffs the mountain of silk pillows upon which she sits. (Reality: Writing is not the profession to take up if you want a private jet and an on-call masseuse.) Perhaps she’s an airhead with the emotional depth of, well, a romance novel heroine who believes that a woman’s true calling in life is to find a well-endowed, swarthy man to marry and serve. (Further Reality: my mother’s heroines are smart, independent and usually pretty sassy, and second, we Wiggs women are boisterous and outspoken and don’t need no stinkin’ men to complete us.)
    Lucky for me, Dave’s aunt made none of these snap judgments.
    It turned out that not only was she an avid romance reader, but she was a fan— a fan! —of my mom’s books. I’d never met anyone who already knew of my mom! I knew she wasn’t reading Susan Wiggs novels in an attempt to nose into our family. She just enjoyed and respected my mom’s work. Finally! The books that had been the bane of my young adulthood were now making me look good!
    Still, Dave’s aunt was but one member of a giant family. How would the rest of his relatives react to my forthright, blustery mother and my