“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry I raised you with champagne taste and a soda budget.”
– Mum
Dear Self,
Remember this little spree? It means I can under no circumstances afford Dolce and Gabbanna, or Diane von Furstenburg (no matter how much eBay marks it down!).
Here’s a MUCH cheaper option, what do you guys think?
“Ah, here it is. Here’s our theme. Here’s our answer. Pink. I want dresses made up in this pink. Babs, take this to Kaiser Delmont. I want shoes and stockings in this color. Laura, everything goes pink. I want the whole issue pink. I want the whole country pink! Lettie, take an editorial, ‘To the women of America-” No, make it, ‘To the women everywhere.’ Banish the black, burn the blue, and bury the beige.”
– Funny Face, 1957
Suddenly the shoe is on the other foot and I’m the one bridesmaid dress shopping. And again, Shabby Apple (which has just launched their new bridesmaid line!) may save my butt, it depends on whether Marie will be having all us girls in the same outfit or just the same color.
And what color could that possibly be for the bride who loves argyle, pearls, knee-socks, and perfect hair? Pink of course!
I wish I wasn’t so technologically hopeless, I’d post pictures of the dresses I’ve found so far, but here are the links.
1st Option: really cute!
2nd Option: not great, but with a cute accessory, could be.
3rd Options: I can’t afford but love.
4th Option: favorite. Duh. It’s Dolce and Gabbanna. It’s also prohibitively expensive. But I’m thinking that’s the hair/lip/face look I’ll go for, if there aren’t any limitations placed.
5th-11th Option: be my panel of judges, darlings. What are your opinions of these?
Can anybody say “Color explosion?”
“Would you like to be one of my bridesmaids?”
“I’d be honored!”
“Bridesmaid…bridesmatron…? What are you?”
“I’m not loving matron.”
“How about attendant?”
“Yes, that sounds appropriately royal! I’d be honored to be your attendant!”
– Marie and C.
Marie announced her engagement publically a couple of days ago, I got the good news early and bounced around enthusiastically in my parking lot (so as not to become the Stompingtons to my downstairs neighbors). Then I emailed my mother and told her to ship over as many bridal magazines from the UK that she could get her hands on. Marie tried a few months ago to steal the ones I trucked home with me to use for my own wedding, the minx. I was thrilled to be able to send off for some of her own!
Then yesterday Hennessy texted me to say that we get to start making wedding plans for her as well. And she walked in today with what I can only guess is a small, sparkly country on her left hand. None of us in the office got any work done between 9 and 10 this morning. Congratulations, Hennessy! It’s a stunner!
Surprisingly, I’ve found I get lots more enthusiastic over my friends weddings than I did my own and I always love being included, whether it’s agonizing over flower arrangements, or being in the wedding party. I love seeing my friends happy and will cheerfully bend over backwards for them.
Also, I am deeply aware that the only reason my own wedding came together so well was because of the tireless effort and indefatigable support of this fantastic network of friends. Daae offered endless tips from her days working for a wedding planner, Catriona helped me stuff envelopes for hours on end, Venice went dress shopping and helped me check out the venue, Peregrine flew cross-country to be a part of the event and drove hither and yon with Snickers to pick up flowers, Fairy housed my parents and siblings and attended every single party associated with the wedding from the bridal shower to the reception, Marie supplied food, drink, and blotting papers throughout the day in spite of not feeling up to snuff…the sucess of the whole day is a tribute to lots and lots of people doing me and J. a great many favors.
And I love to return favors!
I’m thinking Marie needs a fabulous English High Tea shower. With decorations like these, food like this, and the usual required headgear.
“I wore dresses all the time. I like to wear dresses.”
– Willard Scott
Anyone else hitting up this awesomeness next week? Better believe I am! My sister-in-law is getting married in a month and I still don’t have a dress to wear. My beloved Shabby Apple is going to be selling their fab frocks at the Riverwoods this weekend at discount. If I don’t score this for the upcoming nuptials (which look, by the way, to be the social event of the season!) it won’t be my fault!
“I’ve made a terrible mistake…”
-Gob Bluth
Kidding! KIDDING! Yikes, people, have a sense of humor. No divorce yet, all is well!
The wedding was gorgeous! Everything ran on time (miraculous) and the closest thing we had to a disaster was that one of my younger brothers’ tuxes was too short in the sleeves, the boy actually grew between when they measured him and when he arrived. Puberty: a growing frenzy that largely passed me by (lengthwise speaking) but that still doesn’t look convenient from the outside, but I digress. The day was crazy!
7am: Mama, bridesmaids, and C. to the salon
9am: at the ceremony venue
1030am: married, then pictures (even though my smiling muscles gave out well before we were done) until-
1pm: luncheon
3pm: wrap things up, decamp to reception center (after the usual lost clothes, keys, etc.)
5pm: restyling, re-accessorizing, fixing hair, and squeezing back into dresses after a few glorious hours of oxygen on the part of the girls. J. and Val (Venice’s husband and unofficial groomsman by the end of the day) played halo in the mens’ area
6pm: florists arrive, minor hiccups with flowers. Resolution achieved with help of the bridesmaid Dream Team
7pm: reception starts
9pm: reception ends
It was a long day, but it really flew by for me at least! And everything turned out gorgeous. I’ll get pictures up soon, because towards the end I was going mostly on Tylenol and adrenaline so some of the details are fuzzy and I’d like a reminder.
And let me recommend Marie, Venice, Peregrine, and Snickers as Bridesmaids Extrodinaire! These girls should go into business, they’d be millionaires in no time! Seriously, they ran the show. I can’t say enough good things or thank them enough for turning a potentially harrowing day into a glamorous, seamless work of art. And they did it looking absolutely splendid. I’ve known professional hostesses with less than half these girls’ panache!
By the way, going back to work after a week of family fun time, wedding, and honeymoon weekending…kind of sucks! But it was such fun while it lasted. We saw Cirque de Soleil’s KA and the Blue Man Group, both of which were amazing. I’d never seen a Cirque show, and since I was dying to see one as well as BMG, we squeezed both in. Incredible. I’ve no idea how Cirque performers are able to do what they do, and as for the lads in blue platex…absolutely unique, never seen anything quite like it.
Back in reality, we’re swamped in gifts that need opening, sorting, and thank you notes that need writing. However we have a much nicer area to accomplish all this in because my parents painted our flat for us! Loveliest surprise homecoming ever, I could have cried when I realized our walls no longer looked a bad whitewash job.
“Um…dad? We’re in America right now…”
“Oh, right!”
C. and Dad, as he quickly swerves from driving on the left side of the road to the right
Families have met, preliminary stuff is done, Peregrine and Venice are a bridesmaid dream team, my bundles of junk are gathered together and all by the front door, and I’m off to bed, see you all next week!
“I’m finalizing everything this week so I can spend the weekend panicking uninterrupted.”
-C.
Good grief, I’m getting married in nine days…and worst of all, mostly everything is done! I get to make a million and one confirmation phone calls this week, and then sit around twiddling my thumbs and waiting for everything to come crashing spectacularly down.
Any second now J. is going to awaken to his danger and take off running. My immediate and extended family will decide not to show up…or they will, and get into a huge fight culminating in a salad slinging war throughout the luncheon site. The florist will die of swine flu and they’ll send her final creations to her funeral in tribute instead of the reception. My family’s luggage will tumble out of the plane halfway between London and Chicago. Mika (my loveably but hyperactive dog) will sneak her way into a suitcase and reduce my gown to shreds in her excitement. There will be an awful gas leak at the salon which, thanks to the oceans of hair spray that are going into my, Mama, Snickers, Venice, Marie, and Peregrine’s hair, will result in a doubly horrific explosion when a stylist goes outside for a ciggy break. One of J.’s exes will kidnap me to prevent the nuptials (seriously, could happen. Our department is running security on an wedding that’s happening on campus for this very reason). I’ll stumble groggily to the car way too early in the morning to go get my hair done and halfway to the city realize I’ve forgotten everything. The wedding license will spontaneously combust. Despite all my careful working out and eating, I’ll wake up the day of so plumped up with stress that my dress will pop open at the seams when we try to force me into it. I’ll trip going down the stairs at my flat and end up in a bodycast and with a mouthful of broken teeth (this one is actually most likely…).
Though ludicrous, and yes I do realize they are, these are real fears. But I’m not alone. Yesterday both Darling and Mama gave me slightly more realistic-but no less-terrifying possibilities to consider: my family’s luggage could not arrive (never mind being left at Heathrow!), and everyone could come down with food poisoning! J.’s family, on his mother’s orders, will probably be eschewing all restaurants ‘twixt now and then, and I’ll be popping vitamin C likes it’s candy to ward off the cold several helpful and loving friends insist is coming (you jerks!).
“Calm me down. Tell me I should buy the croissants instead of make them!”
“Holy mother of baking…buy the croissants, woman and don’t be ridiculous! You’re throwing a small shower not a presidential ball, I forbid you to bake a single french pastry!”
-Venice and C.
Venice is throwing me a bridal shower tomorrow…J.’s mom and sister are coming…and all of my friends have been asking me my lingerie sizes. If I never post again it is because I have either A) died of humiliation, or B) been killed by his affronted family!
At least we’ll die well-fed! Venice just called me at work to confess she’s gone overboard with the cupcakes (red velvet of course) and has dozens. But when I said, “Yeah! More for us!” she came back quickly with, “Wedding in less than three weeks. Dress, dear.” She is such a good friend.
“Tell me if I stick you with a hairpin or something. But beauty knows no pain, right?” (Sprays me with a whoosh of hairspray)
“HACK!”
“Or oxygen either, try not to breathe.”
-Stylist and C.
Yesterday I got a preview of what the wedding day is going to be like from a practical point of view, we took our bride and groom pictures together. Good grief! I spent twenty minutes picking up flowers, an hour and a half getting my hair done, another half hour doing my face (pore strips, scrubbing, messing up eyeliner twice…the usual set of catastrophes you have when you have something that you really need to look good for), and a mad ten minute dash trying to find things last minute. Even though I had amassed everything I thought we could possibly need earlier in the day.
Finally, my hair drenched in enough hair spray to drown Russia (my stylist was a little enthusiastic with the bottle) and my arms full of shoe boxes, veil boxes, ring boxes, and sheets to protect my gown, we decamped to our photographer’s studio to meet up with her and Darling. Then we had to get me into my dress when, horror! We found the back didn’t fasten at one point. Just as I was about to tumble down a well of fresh angst about my body type, L’Artiste discovered we just hadn’t done it up properly, so I haven’t gained weight but apparently I have lost brain cells. Things were much better after liftoff, L’Artiste is a fabulous photographer and had such fun ideas I can’t wait to see how they turned out. The only problem was worrying about getting my dress dirty and in the end it came out pristine! Don’t ask me how, I’ve no idea, I’m mostly concerned with being grateful!
Moral of the story: the wedding day is going to be a project, I’m going to have to get up at the crack of midnight to get everything together (factoring in several turnarounds to retrieve forgotten/misplaced items), and I will spend a day in a dress that deprives me of oxygen. And it will all turn out gorgeously.
…I hope…!
Well, well! 
Small Dog Syndrome 
