Has that ever come up in conversation??
Do you ever wonder?? If you do, if you don't honestly know what the shade
puce is, if you can't debate ad nauseum the difference between fuschia,
persimmon and chartreuse.......then you have NOT been a bridesmaid!
I have been a bridesmaid 12 times!
Yep, a dirty dozen! I have worn ALL of those dresses.......you know the
dresses.......you have worn them too, and one day, just because you have
been forced into those awful creations, you will also make your closest
friends in the world wear them at your wedding! I am just afraid
of that old saying "always a bridesmaid, never a bride!!"
As I get older, I'm less afraid
of meeting Mr. Right, and more afraid that I may never get to have the
ceremony with 4 women wearing lemon yellow polyester A-line dresses with
lime green ostrich feathers in their hair standing to my left & crying.
Yah, I cry at weddings.......not
because I'm so verklempt over the beautiful ceremony, but because I've
have to stand at altar's wearing chocolate brown chiffon, shiny purple
satin and i'm not even sure what that green flowered number was, but I'm
pretty sure it was made from upholstery fabric.
When I was 6 years old, I used
to play wedding.......I wore a veil made out of a beach towel & a lovely
terrrycloth sarong style towel dress......I knew exactly what my wedding
plans were. But, it wasn't until I got older, probably since my friend
Jessica's wedding, (where I got to wear a robin's egg blue hoop skirt,
a floppy hat AND carry a parasol!) that I began to develop my evil plan!
I think all brides must go through this.......why else would they put their
friends in these clothes?
One of the worst parts about being
a bridesmaid is that this torture does not begin & end with that 20
minute ceremony. It begins months before the wedding, with the wedding
showers. If you are lucky enough to be Maid of Honor, then you will
actually get to PLAN this event, but all of the wedding party must attend.
At the shower you will get to
eat small meatballs, raw veggies & big hunks of cake, all the while
saying "well, I really shouldn't.........." You also get to play shower
games! We all looooooove shower games, don't we? My personal faves are
"toilet paper wedding gown".............Hell, pass me the Charmin &
I'll make you a creation that I will like better than my bridesmaid dress!
I also love the "Hot Potato" game, because we can NEVER have enough dollar
store cranberry scented candles in our possession! Of course, there
is a way to avoid all of those wedding shower hijinx............you could
skip it in favour of the Stagette. (Don't even get me started on the drunken
bride to be on stage with Raoul the Bellboy, or is that Dumbwaiter?)
And don't forget, the main reason for these little get togethers is to
‘shower' the bride with gifts........what the heck does she mean by registering
for a $500 set of sheets?? Geeze, ya roomed with her in college & she
never made her bed!
Then comes those frantic few days
before the wedding. The alterationist sticking pins into places they
shouldn't and discovering in front of 5 catty women all vying to look second
best (next to the bride) that you have gained 7 pounds since your last
fitting & ya gotta have the dress "let out a wee bit." This is
the also the point where you have to invest $70 for a pair of satin shoes
to be dyed the exact same awful shade as the dress. Somewhere in
here you will probably receive a token of affection from the bride that
will make all of the time & expense worth it. (I have SEVEN sets of
saltwater pearls!)
On the frantic day of the wedding,
your job is to make the bride look & feel wonderful. This is
an easy task, which, of course, the bride has helped with by picking those
ugly dresses in the first place. The bride may also rent a sadist,
um, I mean a stylist to "updo" your hair (read: sticking 193 bobby pins
into your scalp to hold 1 limp wisp of baby's breath.) and apply 23 layers
of waterproof makeup in rainbow hues. "It has to show up in the pictures,
girls".......Geeze, this will show up if the pictures are shot from the
Goodyear Blimp!
After the beautiful ceremony,
where you are truly happy for the bride, but are crying only because those
satin shoes cause blisters, you get to stand in the receiving line, where
200+ people will let you know who they are & why you don't know them.
"I'm Sam's cousin's husband's sister-in-law" Then come 2 hours of pictures
in the park, captured memories for a lifetime. You can't lie &
say you weren't there, too many people have the evidence! You will
be contorted into all sorts of positions that seem impossible, but the
photographer swears it looks ‘great!' (You look just as great as every
other wedding party that he has contorted into that "original" shot to
last for all eternity....c'mon, you know the money shot......the bridesmaids
on the park bench looking lasciviously at the groom)
And finally, the reception.
You felt the eyes of the single men on you while in the receiving line.
You know what they are thinking......"geeze, that dress is soooooooo ugly,
she's gonna wanna take it off real soon! Heh, heh, heh!" So you run
into the safe arms of the bride's ancient Uncle Louie, the one who has
bad breath & steps on your toes & makes you do the Macarena.
I know I sound a little bitter,
I'm plenty battle scarred when it comes to this subject, but the reason
I agree to do it is because secretly, I love the whole thing. I doth protest
too much! I love my friends............of course I would do it all over
again for them. And, the other reason I do it is because I know that
someday, if I wait patiently, my turn will come & paybacks are a bitch!
By the way, puce is a shade of
dark red.
(Special
thanks to Kerri for sending the pictures)
go
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