The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #8

We called this one "Twisted Sister."

Three years ago my YOUNGER sister got married.

But the story begins about ten months before that when I became engaged to my guy. About six weeks later, my sister announced her engagement. We are thirteen months apart – so growing up the competition was fierce to say the least. As we planned our weddings, if I said black she said white – typical of our relationship. She set her date for two months after my date, which made me fear that family and friends would have to make “Sophie’s Choice” about which wedding to attend. We did agree to be each other’s maids of honor and have no other bridal attendants.

Six weeks before my wedding, my fiancé backed out with cold feet. Heart wrenching, humiliating and devastating for me. I was living in Florida at the time. Within two weeks, I quit my job, sold my house and moved back to the ole homestead in New York. The aftermath was terrible, but I managed to find a job and have some place to go everyday so I would stay alive and figure out how to heal. In the meantime, my sister’s wedding plans were full steam ahead – in fact, she had gone back on her word and asked a friend to be a bridesmaid months before without telling me. I found out about the additional bridesmaid three weeks before her wedding. It was at this time that I was beginning to have grave doubts as to whether I would be able to walk down the aisle. What would people think? Could I even physically do it? The dread was consuming.

I’m not sure whether it was an act of charity or compassion, but she relieved me of my maid of honor duties. I attended the ceremony only, taking three valium and my high school prom date (so I wouldn't look totally pathetic.) I had still planned to be plus one to the reception – after all, if I had been married, my husband would have been attending with me. But with the collapse of my engagement, my sister had assumed I’d be stag. She berated me for wanting to bring someone when their numbers were already so high – so I opted out of the reception. So much for her compassion.

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #7

Someone sent us this tale, and we have to admit there were some doubts about whether or not it was entirely true...but then again, real life is always stranger than fiction, even in bridal fantasy-land, right?

And so it begins...

the night before my good friend’s wedding (we’re not really friends anymore), i was staying at her house with all of the other bridesmaids. i was using the bathroom before bed, and when i went to open the door, i realized that her cat’s paw was stuck in the gap between the floor and the door. i had to force the door open, and the cat screeched bloody murder and limped away and we had to rush it to the emergency vet, and it had all these broken bones, etc. the cat was supposed to be in the wedding (no joke) but since it couldnt walk, she decided that my punishment would be to CARRY IT down the aisle. so i held a squirming cat in my arms (im allergic, too) for the duration of the 45 minute ceremony. might have been the worst experience in my life, and im sure all the guests thought it was the most BIZARRE thing ever.

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #6: Part 2

and so our tale continues...

Friday AM-I awake to screaming baby, Debbie on pain meds, and Debbie’s mom asleep at the sewing machine. We all gather into the cars to go to the courthouse to get Debbie and James married the day before the wedding because the priest doesn’t do Saturday weddings. After, we go to a reception held at Denny’s like restaurant. Baby still colic, manages to smack his head on table. The groom gets stomach bug and is out of commission for the rest of the day. We head back to the hottest house in all of PA where I continue to clean the house. I find dried ferret poop everywhere. Don't ask. Debbie’s mom is still sewing dresses. At 4 pm we trek to Super Wal-Mart to get wedding feast supplies and the rehearsal dinner that night. Debbie and I begin to cook everything and the rest of the wedding party trickles in. We run through the rehearsal and get everyone fed. The Groom and his buddies go out for the Batchelor party. I take Debbie to Wal-Mart for her Bachelorette party because we need more frosting for the wedding cake and can’t really do anything else because the wedding is in 20 hours. By midnight I am making a wedding cake, getting turkeys ready and standing in to try on all of the wedding clothes for Debbie’s mom. The rest of the in-laws to be are watching TV, not budging a bit. It is hotter than hell.

By 4 am on Saturday morning, I go to flip the bottom layer of the wedding cake on to the board and it falls on the floor. Future in-law says “Oh that sucks”. I do everything in my power to not shove her face in the cake. It is now 4 am. I call it a night and head to bed.

So by 6 am, it is officially T minus 12 hours and counting before the wedding. I get up and let Debbie go to bed. I make the frosting and peel potatoes and check the turkeys. Debbie’s mom is once again passed out at the sewing machine. At 7 am, Debbie gets up to feed the baby and we can’t find the baby formula. We go to Wal-Mart. Later I find out that I confused the Crisco with the formula and put the formula in the pantry. By noon, Debbie is icing her wedding cake, and I am making salad, finger foods and making a large vat of margaritas. Finally the future in-laws get off their asses and help set up the wedding reception area outside and put the wedding arc up in the backyard. At 3 pm the wedding parting comes in and gets dressed. Debbie’s mom is frantically trying to get the groom’s outfit finished as well as the bride’s dress made. Yes, it is 2 hours until Debbie walks down the isle and the wedding gown isn’t finished. At 4 pm everyone has discovered the vat of margaritas and things are going even further downhill as Debbie needs to shower and write her vows. I haven’t had a shower is 3 days. So we hop to the bathroom and take turns in the shower. It is so hot that after the shower we sit in a bathtub filled with cold water. As I am dying her hair, she writes the vows. At 5:30, half an hour after when the wedding was supposed to start, her mom comes in with the dress. There is no zipper, so we have to sew Debbie into the dress. Sweaty, I shimmy into my burlap gown and do Debbie’s hair. A neighbor is cleaning the living room when we come out. She helps me make a veil. Debbie looks good and out the door we go. Her brother, drunk and weaving, volunteered to walk Debbie down the isle. Finally, Debbie and James have their wedding. Photos are taken and tears shed. But my job is not over yet. I have to hustle back into the kitchen while everyone else sits down for the dinner. I grab all the food and set up the buffet, momentarily stopping to participate in the wedding party’s first dance. Lucky me, I get the best man with a bad marriage and two kids who wants to play grab ass with me. In between playing hostess and watching everyone else eat and drink, I manage to toast the happy couple and set up the wedding cake. At the bouquet toss, I hit the ground and barely missed it. Finally, people start to tear away from the food and I was able to change out of my 20 lb. cocoon of a bridesmaid dress and put on a t-shirt. After thwarting of the advances of a soon to be divorced father of two, I bid the couple well and went to bed.



The wedding's over. How much worse can it get? Stay tuned to find out.

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #6: Part 1

Dear readers, this exceptional tale is very long, so we're going to serialize on the blog bit by painful bit. Here goes:

I liken my last stint as a bridesmaid to that of going into battle. I was drafted in to the service of my high school friend, let’s call her Debbie, for her second trip up the isle. Her first marriage was doomed from the start when her then bridesmaid quipped “Oh, if it doesn’t work, you can always get divorced” as Debbie was donning her gown:. Lovely, just lovely. She should have saved that for the toast. Anyway, years later, I another call. “Lisa, will you be my bridesmaid?” Caught between dread and delight, delight won over. “Sure” I said. And thus began the nightmarish tale of the wedding that almost killed me.

Roughly a year before the blessed day, Debbie began planning her dream day. They were going to do everything by themselves: invitations, flower arrangements and by the way, the entire wardrobe for the wedding party. Why you may ask? Because it was going to be a theme wedding and the theme was Medieval. Okay, I can do this. The wedding is taking place 2,000 miles away from anyone else I know. Then about two months into planning the wedding, Debbie is pregnant. No problem, Debbie says she’ll have the baby in March and the wedding is still on for June.

Months pass, seasons pass and Debbie has a baby boy on March 23. April passes, and I hear nothing of the wedding. Finally on May first she calls to say the wedding is still on, but she may need me to fly in a few days early to help. My stomach drops, this is not good.

June 9th, I catch a red eye to fly from LA to Buffalo, NY on a Wednesday night. The wedding is on Saturday. I land 8 am on Thursday. Debbie is nowhere in site. I wait for 40 minutes before calling her house. Nothing. Finally her fiancé calls and Debbie has overslept. The baby has been sick for the past few days and Debbie has a back tooth that is causing her whole mouth to swell. Oh and the whole family has been up for days while Debbie’s mom has been sewing all the wedding clothes.

Three hours later, Debbie, the baby and Debbie’s mom arrive to pick me up. Everyone looks horrible. The baby screams for the next hour and a half; Debbie’s face is all swollen, and the mom has been taking a prescriptive form of No-Doze. We arrive in some small town in Pennsylvania where a record heat wave is in full swing and there is no AC.

Let me break the days down by events:

Thursday afternoon we have to take Debbie to dentist. The fiancé and I bond while Debbie is having a tooth pulled. We then meet the groom’s family at the grocery store where they work. The groom bails on us, leaving me to drive back woods roads with Debbie fading in and out of consciousness. We arrive at base camp where Debbie’s mom has been sewing all day. By the way, the wedding is to be held in the back yard and the house looks like a land fill. So I start to clean the house and I am sweating like a pig. I pass out from exhaustion as does the bride.

The worst is yet to come...

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #5: OUR WINNER!

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest. We received some amazingly bad/fabulous tales and will continue to roll them out in the coming months, just as wedding season kicks in. (And if you have any new tales you've got to share, keep 'em coming. We always love to hear from you.) In the meantime, we wanted to share the winning entry, in all its cringe-worthy glory:

Looking back, I should have known I was in for trouble when Sidney* asked me to be her bridesmaid. You see, I was a second choice bridesmaid. Her first choice got pregnant and literally couldn't stand up. Because I was asked a mere two weeks before the wedding I had to buy the dress that the original bridesmaid purchased. I paid $275 for the dress, which was 4 sizes too big. Then we all had to wear sliver platform open toed shoes (another $75.00) Our toes and nails were manicured to have purple butterflies on them ($60.00) and our bouffant up-dos had to match exactly ($50.00) If that wasn't bad enough, the tacky-ass bride insisted we wear pantyhose with our open toed shoes.

Then Sidney got caught screwing the groomsman (her fiance’s little brother who was supposed to be my escort down the aisle) in the limo before the ceremony. Unbelievably, the wedding was still on but since the groomsman was kicked out, my bridesmaid services were no longer needed because God forbid there be an uneven number of bridesmaids to groomsmen.

My grand total for the privilege of not walking down the aisle and having to attend the reception in a heinous dress? $460.00 + the other cash I spent on the shower and bachelorette.. And I didn't even get the cheap, ugly jewelry gift...she gave it to the original bridesmaid who backed out.

The cost of her husband coming out of the closet last year? Priceless.

*NOT HER REAL NAME

Congratulations to Christina Courser! We hope she buys something really nice for herself with that gift card, courtesy of Random House. And ladies remember: You don't have to be a bridesmaid just because someone asks you.

In the immortal words of Nancy Reagan, just say "no."

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #4

Another entry from our best of collection. Despite the description, this is one where we wished she had also sent in a picture!

No one at my friends' wedding looked like anything out of “The Wedding Crashers!” Why do all movies about weddings portray the bridal party as randy co-eds ready for their lessons in sexual exploration? Trust me, the only exploration I felt like doing after seeing what the beautician at the parlor had done to my face and hair was to find a weapon that I could assault her with and then turn it on myself to put me, and everyone who was viewing my new face, out of misery.



Now I began by telling this competent cosmetologist that my hair was different than anything she had probably ever encountered. I actually had three separate types of hair on my head. On the sides of my face, above my ears, the strands were smooth and almost straight. I didn’t disclose that the reason for this oddity amongst the rest of my nappy roots was due to the fact that since I was coordinated enough to manipulate my digits I had a nervous habit of twirling my hair in those spots. To this day, I am known to get two big strands on both sides of my head going, twirling faster and faster depending on how hard I’m concentrating, until it appears that I might take flight.



Now, for the second part of my hair, we will be moving towards the back of my head around the nape of my neck. The hair that lines my neck is nice, soft and wavy. It has been shielded from the torturous rays of the sun and has had the benefit of years of hibernation, protected from the elements by the enormous mass that lies above. What does in fact lie above has amazed friends and acquaintances alike for all my life. One observer mentioned that it actually required its’ own zip code. The best way to describe it is to say that if you could genetically combine the hair from a horse, a wire-haired fox terrier, and a kitchen broom, you might have a close resemblance to what type of stuff inhabits the crown on my head.



Now that my beautician had received the full follicle story she could begin her masterpiece. She assured me that she had handled many a head of hair like mine and dove into my coif with gusto and determination (ok, is it just me or did that just sound like a lesbian porn reference?) She began by working from the bottom up, which worried me as I began to have visions of mushroom-like clouds of wiry strands whose results could, if not wearing radioactive protection gear, at least make you nauseous. She quickly realized that this was not the accurate route through the rat maze of hair and started over. Now the whole process of attempting a new attack only to abandon all hope was repeated again and again. Each time the bush on top of my head grew in so many dimensions I was certain that Buckaroo Banzai was now crossing over into my hair.



When she got out the black orthodontic rubber bands I didn’t know if she planned to employ them in the up-doo or sadistically place them on my nipples for a little diversion. Puzzlement solved: into the bush they went. Now these bands are used to force permanent teeth to shift within a person’s jaw. There what you might call the “Mighty Mouse” or rubber bands. I guess my hair artist figured that if these little suckers were strong enough to correct dental problems, it would surely hold my tresses as she wished. And, after about 3-100 count bags of these suckers, my hair had in fact begun to behave. The problem was that it was behaving like an orc helmet from the prop department of LOTR.



Now that the “up-doo” had officially become an “up-don’t” we moved on to the makeup. Suffice it to say that I don’t normally wear makeup. The only time I put on makeup is when I’m going to Rocky Horror or the final (and they really mean it this time!) KISS concert. This time the make-up artist really had her work cut out for her. She started with a lovely translucent base, applied a matte coat of powder to reduce the shine and then outlined my “entrancing” eyes with some sort of tiny brush dipped in liquid that must have been stored in the freezer. She then completed the look with some colors on my eye lids to add luster and an overall bronzer to blend and bring the look together.



She brought something together alright. What it looked like was the unholy matrimony of the Caucasian-midget version of Rue Paul and “The Thing” in drag. Of course everyone told me it wasn’t as bad as I thought but their words didn’t carry much credibility considering they were about to toss their champagne.



Ah well, I thought, I put on my celadon/celery/sea foam dress with spaghetti straps and an empire waist and moved about like I was royalty. Less like Queen Elizabeth and more like Henry the 8th mind you, but none the less royal. Before the music began at the church I grabbed my friend, the bride’s arm and said to her, “Well, this is it, are you ready?” to which she replied, “How can I not be! They always say, ‘with a good man by your side, you can get through anything’, well, today it looks like I’ve got a good man on both sides, so I’m golden!” Neither of us could laugh for fear of turning into Alice Cooper-look-alikes, so we choked back the tears and strutted down the isle.



Later I told my friend that it was my entire plan from the beginning. I knew she wanted to look good that day and all eyes would be upon her and her beauty...

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #3

WARNING: C'mon, there's not a woman out there who hasn't had an "accident." But still, we don't advise reading this one while eating.

We called this one "SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY." Thanks to the reader who sent this in--it made for an extra laugh at our book party that our friend Will read it.

Aug 14th 2005: a day that will live in infamy.

I was a bridesmaid in my brothers’ wedding, which just happened to also be the hottest day of the year. I woke up that day sick with the flu, and lucky me, started my period. It took all my energy just to get dressed in my very pale yellow bridesmaid’s dress and head out to the ceremony, an hour’s drive away.

It was hot and humid-- the kind of heat where you just can’t breathe. The wedding started and I was just beginning my trek down the aisle when I heard my mother whisper loudly:

“Barb! There’s blood on your dress. There’s BLOOD on your dress!”

So of course I freak out. I didn’t know what to do. There was blood all over the butt of my dress, and 200 people to witness it. I literally wanted to die right on the spot. The other bridesmaids wouldn’t let me run away. Instead, they just put a shawl around me, which only added to the sweat that was dripping down my cleavage, and I had to stand there for over 10 minutes till the vows were over.

Let’s just say after that, I ran to my car and went home. But I still have stains in my car that remind me every day of one of the worst days of my life.

The Annals of Being a Bridesmaid #2

Another entry (names changed to protect the innocent and long-suffering). We love this woman's attitude!

My worst bridesmaid story involves many separate weddings, all leading up to the worst. In the past 2 years, I have been a bridesmaid 4 times and a reader/guest book watcher/ insert other crappy job, numerous others. Until last Saturday, I had caught three bouquets at the past weddings because as everyone knows, if you’re single you are forced to go up and catch the bouquet. [Ed. note: Erin finds the bouquet toss to be the perfect opportunity to hit the ladies room.]

In the past, the running joke had been to “aim for Jessica” (uh, me). Ha ha, isn’t that clever? The first or second time I heard it, I tried to make a joke out of it and say that I need more fake flowers in my apartment anyway or I appreciate the opportunity to practice my superior catching skills.

Regardless of the impressions of friends, I do not view my self as a desperate single. I have a good job, I’m currently working on my MBA and I like to think that I am reasonably attractive. I also have a boyfriend whom I have been dating for quite awhile, who is also in graduate school and looking into getting his PhD. I am happy where I am and truthfully would not want to change anything until we were both out of school anyway. However, if you were to ask my engaged/married/pregnant friends, because he has not purchased the obligatory iceberg for my hand, I must not be happy.

Last Saturday, at my best friend from high school’s wedding, while wearing my 3rd consecutive strapless burgundy bridesmaid dress, I reported front and center to the “single’s circle,” ready to await a parcel of flowers hurled at my head. To my surprise, I did not see any flowers aiming in my direction. Had the bride mercilessly decided to by-pass my presence and give it to one of the 3 eight-year-old flower girls that so desperately wanted them? Alas, no. My friend had snuck up behind me to HAND THEM TO ME. Yes, that’s correct. Apparently neither my catching skills at the last 10 weddings, nor my luck at finding a man who would possibly want to marry me could be trusted, and to ensure the traditional joke and folly, she thought that singling me out (no pun intended) and handing me the bouquet was best.

To top it all off, the person that caught the garter was her 10-year-old cousin, who appeared mortified to have his picture taken with me. He must have thought that being single was contagious. I could have cried, laughed or even run out. Instead I chose to smile; after all was her day and someday even if I never marry and am eaten alive by my various cats, I know that I will have a very lovely apartment. It’s a good thing I like fake flowers.