10/29/07

Bride or the Bridesmaid


I was recently a bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding. It made me think about friendship and what it means to take this position at one’s wedding. It’s not the first time I’ve been a bridesmaid, it’s actually the second. But this was the wedding that had to be perfect. Held at a beautiful mansion with almost a hundred people in attendance – and one real life pop star, who happened to be the bride’s cousin – everyone looked like someone. However, I did not feel that way. In fact, I felt like a whale in my brown J. Crew dress, which was strategically bought two sizes too small in a vain attempt to lose the weight necessary to fit into said dress. Nothing like doing something dramatic to scare yourself into losing weight. Well, as you can imagine, it didn’t work and one week before the wedding I had to have it altered because it wouldn’t zip up. Unfortunately the very sweet Korean tailor was unable to take out enough fabric to fix it, and with a severe language barrier I could not explain what I was looking for, so she MacGyvered it best anyone could by sewing three black elastic bands from one side of the dress to the other. I then bought a black body suit to wear underneath in an effort to cover the rolls of fat that would have otherwise shown through. Now on a positive note, the bride had already asked me to wear a wrap because she did not want my tattooed arms showing up in her lovely wedding pictures. And who am I to cause controversy? Of course I did as I was told and found a large shawl-like contraption to cover the tats, along with my fat, and the eighties-style, jimmy-rigged, bridesmaid-disaster of a dress.

But back to what this all made me contemplate. Why do we have bridesmaids at weddings and what does it mean to the bride. I was once married, before I realized I was a total lesbian and met my amazing fiancée. It was a rather casual wedding of sorts and I had two bridesmaids. I didn’t ask anything of my bridesmaids, except that they wear matching dresses. One of my bridesmaids did a roast for me at our rehearsal dinner and it brought back some terrific memories, not withstanding the shame of my unibrow and delusional sentiments that I was Winona Ryder’s long lost sister in Heathers.

Looking back, I truly believe that my request of these two women, to be my bridesmaids, was not a burden on either of them. I just wanted to pick two people close to my heart. So why did I feel such resentment and obligation while I was a recent maid of the bride? Am I completely self-centered and narcissistic? Have my lesbian ways caused me to resent anyone able to obtain a genuine certificate of marriage outside of Massachusetts and Canada? Or rather was it the fact that the bride gave me stipulations to being her bridesmaid? Yes, that is correct – I was given two stipulations. 1) I was not allowed to show my tattooed arms 2) I was not allowed to give a toast. That’s right folks…if I wanted to be her bridesmaid then I was not allowed to hold a mic. Apparently my unfiltered mouth was too scary to be unleashed at such a prestigious event and thus I was ordered not to speak. Honestly I enjoy giving toasts. I’ve known this bride for many years and was hoping to talk to our friendship and how happy I was for her and the groom, openly give them my blessing and get as sappy as I like. But it was not to be and therefore, I held my tongue on several accounts and accepted the offer, stipulations and all.

Now here’s the other thing that urked me. It was insulting enough that I was treated like an untrustworthy child, but then the bride thought it would be okay to pawn off her best friend from college on my girlfriend and me. This friend decided to come to the wedding last minute and couldn’t find a place to stay. So the bride called two days before the wedding and asked if he (yes, a male friend) could share a room with us for four nights! We didn’t know this guy and didn’t care to share our entire vacation time with him. Not to mention, we didn’t bring anything to sleep in and weren’t looking to reenact a scene from Meatballs. Of course I refused, but I felt bad about it. I had to deny her as she was getting ready for her wedding. She was audibly hurt that I refused, which in turn made me worry I made the wrong decision. But why didn’t she broach any of her married friends to house this guy for four nights? Why wouldn’t she ask the groom’s friends that had homes in the area? I believe it’s because as lesbians, there’s the mindset that two girls are more like friends than lovers and the idea that we would want to be intimate at all during our vacation was out of the question.

I’m a little bitter about the whole situation, in addition to the stipulations, and the complete sense of entitlement that makes a bridezilla just that. There is more to this story, but I won’t bore you with all the details. Let’s just say that planning multiple bachelorette events from a different state without even a thank you added fuel to the fire. I wasn’t even the maid of honor! Although it may not be the actual “bridesmaiding” that has made me so upset, I assure you that I will not be another bridesmaid in the near future!

At this point I don’t think I’ve answered any of my own questions, but I’m not sure I have to. I think this is about a friendship that needs some mending, not necessarily a poor tradition.

2 comments:

Dalious said...

I would like to hear more about this amazing fiancee'?

ReneeG said...

Somebody should've recommended this girl to go on that show "Bridezilla"!!!