Bad Bridesmaidery and other Upcoming Horrors

Sorry for the delay in updates... not having been a bridesmaid in a year has really slowed down my thoughts on bridesmaidery!
This post comes after a chat with my cousin, who was providing all the dish about the wedding she's in in July.


Issue 1: You only know the bride in the bridal party.
Issue 2: The other bridesmaids joke about your size while trying on bridesmaid dresses.
Issue 3: The maid of honor (already married) only wants to plan the bachelorette party... and wants it to be out of town... the week before the wedding.
Issue 4: The shower is in 3 weeks, and no invitations have gone out. For 50 people. And it's the bride's only shower. And it's on a holiday weekend.
Issue 5: The shower, that has been poorly planned, also has an unrealistic budget and effort assumption, given the amount of people attending.

There's a lot of problems here. Sure- you can't help not knowing the other members of the bridal party. That's not a big deal. But bridesmaids making fun of another bridesmaid's dress size is just downright despicable (same goes for you, dress shop employees).
Also, a maid of honor who doesn't have the excuse of living out of town (or if the bride lives out of town) really has no right to refuse to plan the shower. It's one of the expectations when you agree to such a thing. ESPECIALLY when you're already married and have been through this before. No excuses.
Planning a shower on a holiday weekend might not be a terrible thing, but people need to have advanced notice that such an event is happening so that they can plan ahead, and hey, what do you know... BUY A GIFT. I've got nothing to give you regarding underbudgeting, other than thinking ahead that if you want certain things (and want them done correctly), you're starting off on a wrong foot by not planning for a bigger budget.
And the bachelorette party? Well, I think I've made it clear that I don't have a good track record with bachelorette parties, so maybe I'm not the best person to talk about this one, but out of town parties can't happen a week before the wedding... that's when wedding stuff is vital. And out of town parties need to also have the understanding that if every bridesmaid can't attend, then that's ok too. Budgets seriously need to be taken into consideration.

I'm looking forward to my cousin sharing more of her bridesmaid stories with me, and I'll pass them along!

Fall Wedding Season Has Arrived!

It's been awhile, and I've not yet completed my bridesmaid swag challenge. Maybe this weekend? We shall see.

Right now, I'm busy preparing for 3 weddings in 4 weeks. Thankfully, two are in town, and the third and final wedding is out of town by several hours. This first wedding, I was almost drafted into the wedding party as a 27 Dresses rule (thanks to the brilliant @27messes for this brilliant commentary on the bridesmaid draft). The second wedding is the wedding of a fellow bridesmaid, who has chosen a former bride to be her bridesmaid, and this bridesmaid is crashing with me for the weekend. As I am her driver for the weekend, I've been invited to all the events (oh yeah- I'm also the rehearsal photographer this time around), so I'll get to see what it's like to be a bridesmaid without actually purchasing a dress or having any real responsibilities. And the third wedding? Absolutely no responsibilities but celebrating in New Orleans. I think I can handle that.

By the way- if you have a Pinterest account, look for me! I've got boards about the dresses I can't imagine ever having to wear, the dresses I'd love to wear, some great wedding hair ideas, and more!

Wedding Tales & Horrors, Pt. 3

Well, I'd promised to share my story about why bachelorette parties and I don't have good track records. There was that time that I wrecked my car... and then this wedding happened.

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.

On being a professional bridesmaid

I should start off this post by pointing out that I know there are people who have been in more weddings than I have, and that I probably still have a few weddings before my tenure as "professional bridesmaid" is up. That being said...

I've jokingly referred to myself as a professional bridesmaid, but at wedding #5, after a guest/ close friend of the bride's family found out that it was my 5th wedding, she and others started referring to me as such. When it came time to do anything, "Where's the professional bridesmaid? She knows what to do." This wedding is when I realized that with that title, you've got to be prepared for ANYTHING.

What it takes to be a "professional bridesmaid" (even The Knot couldn't prepare me for this):

• You've got the essentials: Advil, bandaids, lotion, needle & thread
• You know what to do in a crisis (i.e., the bride doesn't have "something blue," and you figure out that you have straps that you aren't using on your blue dress with you, which can be safety pinned to the inside of her dress)
• You know to get caffeine before the wedding (Sonic happy hour in this particular instance)
• You know how to paint nails, and manage to get the other bridesmaids and yourself in record time
• You know how to zip the bride into the dress, if it requires specific maneuvering/ bride not breathing while it's being zipped
• The minister goes to you while the bride & groom are taking group pictures, because things were left behind
• You know how to bustle the dress, without requiring safety pins to show you where the loops are
• The catering staff comes to you at the reception to ask if you managed to figure out how to get music to play, since you'd already been by to bug them when they didn't have the hookup like had been promised by someone else
• You can come up with a reception playlist on the day of the rehearsal, when other reception options fall through
• When there's an undesirable bridesmaid job, you get pushed to do it (unless you figure out an alternative)

Makes me wonder why I didn't go into wedding planning as a career choice. Maybe I should start my own business... "Rent a Bridesmaid." I'll be there with Advil, lotion, drinks, and get everyone down the aisle and into the reception with everything ready to go.

The Knot... and why you can't believe everything it says.

While writing my maid of honor speech is still causing me issues, I figured I'd write another blog entry here.

While fretting about my first go as MOH, I turned to The Knot to see what my responsibilities were. After visiting their Bridesmaid site, I realized it was better to just see what the bride needed me to do... which is what I recommend to you all.

First off, The Knot is clearly meant for brides. Yes, this should have been more obvious to me, but I figured that the bridesmaid page would be safe grounds. And they do offer some good advice, don't get me wrong.

But then some of the advice they offer includes 10 Ways To Lend the Bride A Hand. I forgot that I'd seen it, and was tricked into looking at it a few times before I could remember that it was silly. Sure- everything on the list sounds great, but when you're a graduate student with limited funds (even more limited after the purchase of a dress, wedding present, wedding shower present, etc), you realize that the list is a little ridiculous. Especially when you don't live in the same town or state as the bride (as it has happened a majority of the weddings I've been in). You want to know how you can lend a hand to the bride? ASK HER what she wants you to do. Plain and simple. Because the bride will more than likely have an idea of what she wants you to do anyways (and that is not meant as an insult- what girl doesn't have some sort of idea how she wants her wedding to look?)

These responsibilities can include: going with her as she tries on gowns, going with her to try on bridesmaid dresses (at one point, I'm fairly certain I'd tried on every dress at David's Bridal between all the weddings I'd been in), going with the bride to look at flowers, helping with the out-of-town guest goodie bags, working on programs, planning wedding showers/ bachelorette parties, helping with seating arrangements, etc. Not every bride is going to have the same needs.

Which is why I repeat my earlier statement- ask the bride what SHE wants you to do... don't rely on The Knot to tell you your responsibilities.