See, I was the maid of honor. And it was my duty to plan this bachelorette party. I'd offered to rent a cabin, but as the bride lived way far away, planning a good time just wasn't going to work. That and the fact that I was a poor grad student who was going to have to beg for money to pay for that (or even my share of it). Anyways, the bride and I started to plan the party to be about going out for a nice dinner with friends and then getting a hotel suite to celebrate her impending wedding... the Wednesday night before her wedding. And then I graduated less than a month before the wedding, and miraculously got a job interview. Of course... there's a catch. The interview dates fell on Thursday or Friday, with the wedding happening on Saturday, and the interview was 3 hours away. But I was lucky! I'd previously worked for this organization and was able to explain my situation (and explained nicely that the bride would kill me if I missed the rehearsal on Friday). They kindly offered me the 8:30 am interview slot on Thursday, so that I could still fulfill my bridesmaid duties. I explained this to the bride, and we finally worked out a deal to go out Thursday night instead, and skip the hotel (after a brief moment where there was a suggestion for me to leave for my interview at 4am after partying the night before- then everyone realized what a terrible idea that might be).
And then the week of the wedding happened. And the meteorologists decided to have fun predicting bad weather (snow- in an area that doesn't know how to handle snow). So much so that the organization I was interviewing with asked if I felt safe enough to drive, since they knew I was coming from 3 hours away.
Me: "Sure! I'll be borrowing my dad's all-wheel drive, and I'm crashing with my old roommate the night before, so it's not a big deal."
Work: "Well, ok. We feel better knowing that you have the first interview anyways."
Made it to the interview and out with no weather issues. Make it to my old roommate's house to change out of interview clothes, still no weather issues. I don't even make it to the end of her street, and the snow starts coming down. No big deal, it's not sticking. We're going to be fine. Make it halfway home, and it starts to stick. Hmm. And I'm starting to feel TERRIBLE. Well, this is going to be a fun drive.
I make it to my hometown, and it's clearly just beginning to stick there. And on the radio, they announce that school is being cancelled for the rest of the afternoon.
Folks, my town doesn't do snow plows. Nor do they do much salt. See- I live in the South... and it's hilly around here. What do we know about snow? And how do you get a plow up some of these hills?
I make it home just fine, and then I look out the window and it's covering the roads. People attending the bachelorette party start calling me, asking what the plan is. Hmm. Well... maybe it will stop snowing soon enough.
I don't know if you've ever noticed, but when you don't want it to snow, it snows enough to ruin plans. When you pray for the snow, it doesn't happen, or hits the town next to you but skips your town. Naturally, it continued to snow, and after hearing reports of people's commutes taking 2-3x the normal amount, and the bride wants to go downtown to eat (20-30 minutes on a good day), there starts to be even more hesitation to continue with the party from the guests (the bride, understandably, wants the party to go on). One bridesmaid calls me, tells me her horrific account of her commute home, and says that there's no way she can make it back out. And if we go out, for us to be safe.
Now, I mentioned earlier that I started feeling terrible on my drive home from my interview, and at this point, I didn't feel much better. And with all the hassle of the weather, I was really uneasy about going out. When the meteorologists beg for people to get home and stay home, I listen. And that's exactly what they were telling us.
I was supposed to drive and be the DD for the evening (MOH duties, when you don't want to pay for limo/ taxi)... but then I couldn't even get out of my own driveway safely. And let's just remember the time before, when I had a car wreck due to bad weather for a different bachelorette party. So the bride's father gets roped into driving for the evening, and they offer to pick me up. And they can't even make it to my neighborhood. So the suggestion is made that I walk out of my neighborhood to meet them (about 1/3-1/2 of a mile, all downhill). But then I point out that it's going to be worse upon return, and there's no way I can climb uphill if it's worse. So the bride suggests that I spend the night at her parents' house. Ok, that works... but now I have to bring everything I need for an overnight, and we're getting nails done and have the bridesmaid luncheon before I can return home again. And I have to bring this all downhill on icy, snowy streets? I could see the broken leg, and I had TERRIBLE health insurance (I refer to it as my "got hit by a bus and it was my fault" insurance), and that just makes you cringe even more. I apologized profusely, but had to back out of the bachelorette party I had planned. And then I felt relieved, because it gave me a night to feel better, before the rehearsal and wedding. And relax, after having been through a job interview that morning!
It was a comedy of errors the whole way through. Only 4 or 5 people were able to show up to the bachelorette party, sadly enough. And the restaurant closed early, due to the weather. The bride did have fun, thankfully, and enjoyed the snowy backdrop for her wedding two days later.
The lesson: Job searching and bridesmaid duties don't mesh well. Neither does weather and bridesmaid duties. I've got no solutions though.
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