There’s a line in “Pride and Prejudice” in which Mrs. Bennett defends her preoccupation with finding marriage prospects for her girls. “When you have five daughters, Lizzie,” she answers the second eldest, “tell me what else will occupy your thoughts.”

If only Jane Austen had gone further, providing some humorous insights from those daughters’ weddings. I could use a good laugh as Daughter No. 1’s big day draws close. At least that’s what our florist told me, hinting that I needed to chill.

“Honey, just remember this,” she drawled over the counter, looking me in the eye. “Even if your daughter trips on her dress and does a cartwheel down the aisle, people are going to smile and say, ‘Now, wasn’t that cute?’”

I think I looked at her with some skepticism at that point.

“Anything goes now days,” she added for clarification, handing me an itemized bill. “Anything.”

While I’m not anticipating a cartwheel this Saturday, I’m pretty sure something unscripted will happen to keep us humble. To prepare for that (and to help me chill, as advised), I asked a few friends to share some funnies from their own weddings. The word pictures they painted are as timeless as the underpinnings of an Austen novel, including one from a local schoolteacher who said she really wanted to make the most of her moment in the spotlight. Her father, however, had other plans.

“My dad just about dragged me down the aisle,” my friend wrote, using lots of exclamation points. “I really wanted to savor the moment, and he just wanted it to be over.”

Another told of troubles fanning a certain flame. “Despite our best attempts, we couldn’t get our unity candle lit,” she recalled. “We stood there for what seemed like an eternity looking at one another, coaxing it to light.” After 20 years of marriage, that bride gratefully acknowledges the candle glitch wasn’t a foreshadowing of things to come.

A few states away in Missouri, a couple overlooked something on their celebration’s to-do list. “We had our names and wedding date printed on 500 dinner napkins, but we forgot to bring them to the reception,” my friend explained. The frugal couple didn’t let the monogrammed mementoes go to waste, though. “We may not have had much for those first few years, but we had very nice napkins,” she laughed.

And this came in from my sister-in-law, something I witnessed but had forgotten. “Our limo didn’t show up to drive us to the airport,” she reminded me, “so we squeezed into the backseat of a two-door hatchback (wedding dress and all) to wave goodbye to everyone.”

I heard other tales of dramatic cat entrances and wardrobe malfunctions, but it would be hard to beat this account for its surprise ending:

“All through college all I wanted was to graduate and marry Chris,” my friend shared. “I bought lots of bride’s magazines and even bought a dress before he asked me to marry him.” He did eventually ask for her hand and their wedding day finally came, but that’s where all the careful planning went awry. It seems the groom and two groomsmen decided to grab a meal together before the grand event — and got a good dose of food poisoning to boot.

My friend laughs now at what wasn’t so funny then. “They were very sick the day of our wedding. My husband can’t even remember it,” she said.

I can personally attest to the truth of that saga, because I’ve seen their wedding photos, and that poor guy looks almost green. But all wasn’t lost. The newlyweds were eventually able to board their honeymoon cruise ship and even gain some celebrity among the passengers. “We won first place for funniest wedding story,” my friend smiled.

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at kimhenderson319@gmail.com.