HAPPIEST DAYS OF LIFE; WEDDING CONSULTANT HAS SEEN IT ALL.

Byline: Cynthia Teed Daily News Staff Writer

A tiny flower girl, during a posh wedding at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, skipped halfway down the aisle, stopped, and while holding her flower basket, left a tell-tale puddle.

``The little girl's mother didn't see all this action, thank goodness,'' laughed Barbara Sumner, the church's wedding consultant. ``But the video cameraman certainly did.''

In a perfect bridal world run by mothers and wedding consultants like Sumner, fiascos should never happen - especially not at fairy-tale weddings. But they do, even at the most carefully planned celebration.

Sumner recalled the bride decked out in a dress with a frothy skirt of tulle, who demanded that her 8-month-old ring bearer, clad in a diaper-sized tuxedo, be pulled down the aisle in a red wagon.

That plan didn't roll well, either, Sumner said. The baby screamed until he was removed from the cart, as perplexed wedding guests reluctantly kept their seats and the bride's mom sobbed quietly in her hanky.

Sumner makes it through, thanks to a healthy sense of humor developed over more than 15 years in the business. And she admits to having that unique ability to keep brides and their moms from getting stressed and teary.

And it's not easy these days because this energetic lady now plans wedding repeats, vow renewals and lavish weddings - even for the offspring of her former clients.

Anticipating bridal requests for all the trimmings is a no-brainer for Sumner, who has seen and heard it all, and is aware that times have changed in the wedding business.

For starters, forget throwing rice, or birdseed for that matter, on the bridal couple. The mere idea conjures up dark memories for Sumner, who knows a thing or two about nuptial safety.

Nowadays, modern brides give guests small pots of liquid soap and encourage all to blow bubbles instead.

And then there's the R-word, runner, which makes Sumner shudder at the thought. Those are on the way out, too, because it's too easy to trip in bridal finery.

Bridal consultants get in on the ground floor of well-planned weddings, as most couples contact them as soon as they have set the date and reserved the church.

Sometimes the mother of the bride takes charge, and that's OK with Sumner. She just wants to help out, not command.

After all, it is the bride's big day, a fact that wedding wizards like Sumner never want to forget.

Also on the selection list for the perfect wedding is the music.

All types of music have been performed in the church, she said, with couples intent on breaking from the traditional organ music and instead using everything from guitars to a mother-and-son harp duet.

Not all melodies produce the same results, as Sumner found out several years ago. Once, a bride wanted to break tradition by surprising her husband with bagpipe music.

And she did - with her husband bursting into heart-wrenching sobs.

Sumner supplied plenty of tissues from her well-stocked bride's room crammed with emergency items for every hitch.

Crisis alert mode doesn't dominate Sumner's consulting hours spent with the bride and her mother - most of the time it's just a lot of hilarious fun.

Sometimes, this consultant gets to exercise her creative powers and pick the colors for the flowers, even suggesting a color theme for the bridesmaids' dresses - one part of her job she enjoys the most.

The high-tech '90s can complicate even the simple act of choosing pretty colors to make a wedding even prettier - just ask her about the black-and-white craze.

From the old school, she still shivers at the very idea of a bridesmaid wearing black down the aisle.

Bridesmaids wearing black is one thing, but walking barefoot down the church's aisle is quite another.

The story goes that several gorgeous bridesmaids had sent their shoes out to be dyed to match their satin gowns. But, alas, the young ladies hadn't sent their shoes to the cobbler soon enough.

The shoes didn't dry before showtime - and girls, never ones to miss weddings, had to trudge on down the aisle slipperless.

``Oh, there was no way you could tell,'' the plucky bridal consultant insisted. ``The long skirts covered their feet.''

Long skirts may have saved that wedding party a bit of embarrassment, but bridesmaids in other weddings haven't been so lucky, especially when hoop skirts were all the rage.

Once, a group of bridesmaids wearing hoop skirts seemed to float to the front altar in the huge circular skirts falling over metal hoops.

Kneeling at the front of the church, their heads bowed in devotion, the young ladies' hooped skirts popped up in back, giving parishioners a view of what was underneath.

Sumner's ability to see the silver lining smooths over nuptial mishaps that can plague even the most well-prepared bride.

And that's all in the game plan according to Sumner, who said she loves being a wedding consultant because it's so much fun to see the beautiful brides and their pageants.

``I just want the bride to be happy,'' she said. ``It's fun when she and her mother cry - tears of joy, of course. Then I know I've done my job.''

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PHOTO (Color) Wedding coordinator Barbara Sumner puts the final fluff in the bride's gown.

Eric Grigorian/Special to the Daily News