If it sounds like the plot of that ridiculous Katherine Heigl movie, let me stop you right there because I don’t have twenty-seven friends close enough to want me in their weddings. (Does anyone? That might have been the least realistic part.) Nor am I going to fall in love with a supersexy wedding columnist who looks like James Marsden. (Okay, if James Marsden is reading this, yes, I’m single, ready, and have five weddings that I could use a date to . . . just saying. Although I don’t think I’m allowed to bring a date to any of them, but that’s a post for another day.) On the contrary.
No. I have one best friend, two close friends who want me in their weddings to help deflect from horrible friends and family members, and two younger siblings who apparently don’t agree with the Victorian concept that the elder sibling should be married before the younger.
I can’t use their names because if my identity is revealed, I not only won’t be in any weddings, I won’t have any friends left. And despite the fact that I’m being snarky about them on the internet right now, I actually do love my friends.
So I’ll refer to them by letters.
Bride A asked me to be in her wedding first. She’s my work bestie and I adore her. Her other bridesmaids, however? I don’t think they’re human. And if they’re cyborgs, or Stepford people, they’re definitely the evil kind. But in such a NICE way. One of them offered to send me a juice cleanse to help me lose weight before the wedding. Isn’t she sweet? She’s also Bride A’s future sister-in-law, so I can’t be rude back in person or Bride A will suffer for it. The saddest part is that Bride A told me she doesn’t even like her bridesmaids, which is pretty much the saddest thing ever. So I’ll play along and behave for her sake.
Bride B is lovely but has Mom-zilla (Mommy Kruger? I’m not entirely sure how naming wedding party members after horror movie icons works.) and basically asked me to be in the wedding that Mom-zilla is forcing her to have because God forbid her daughter actually have a say in her own wedding. I know I’m mixing my movie monster metaphors, but I’m going to need a bigger boat.
Bride C is like Mary Poppins—practically perfect in every way—except I hooked up with a groomsman in her wedding and I don’t know which one it was. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you. I blacked out drunk and then snuck out of the room the next morning while he was asleep facing the wall. But I made the super-mature decision to not let Bride C tell me who the mystery man is because I can’t be awkward around him if I don’t know who he is.
Bride D is my brother’s fiancée. At the risk of sounding like Mariah Carey, I don’t know her. I’d like to. I think. But she’s like twelve and basically never speaks. And I might have thought he was kidding when he told me he was engaged and made a snarky comment. While I was on speakerphone. With her. Oops. (However, in the grand scheme of Bride C and all, it wasn’t THAT big of a faux pas.) Bride E is my baby sister. She’s eight years younger than me, still lives with my parents, and is walking around with her fiancé’s grandmother’s Tiffany diamond ring. She’s twenty-four and has never held a full-time job or paid rent. Granted, there’s a pretty close to zero percent chance she actually gets married, but come on. This whole situation has to be a giant troll designed to ruin my self-esteem. No one falls ass-backward into things that easily in real life, do they?
Still with me?
So why a blog? My roommate, who is thankfully NOT planning a wedding, suggested they make a reality TV show about my life. I don’t do reality TV. No judgment if you do, but it’s not my scene. Writing, however, is. And I figured if I could make some money off people laughing at my ridiculous existence, it would help pay off the astronomical debt I’m assuming by agreeing to be in all of these weddings. Seriously, I think getting another college degree would be cheaper!
In other words, welcome. Come for the drama, stay to laugh at my mistakes.
This is Bridesmania.
I proofread it and fixed a couple of typos. I felt a little guilty about trashing my siblings, especially when they had caused the least actual disruption to my life so far, outside of my own sense of failure at being significantly older than both of them and still single. Which really wasn’t their fault. But Jake had ridden his bicycle into my first car when he was thirteen, severely denting it, and Amy was just plain annoying, so it was all fair play, right?
Was it any good though? Would people want to read it? I needed an outside opinion, but my three closest friends were implicated in it.
Becca would be honest.
“Hey Becks?” I called toward the living room. I heard her mute the TV.
“What’s up?”
“I wrote a blog post. Will you read it and tell me if it’s any good?”
“Sure.” She sat down on my bed and I handed her my laptop. She nodded as she read along, smiling at the James Marsden line, chuckling about the horror movie mom names and laughing out loud at the Mariah Carey part. “Love it,” she said, passing the computer back. “But what happens if one of the brides reads it?”
I tilted my head. “I mean, what are the odds that that happens?”
“Depends where you share it. Probably stay away from your social media and the big wedding websites.” A grin spread across her face. “Wait. This is kind of like The Help. If you put something in there that the people you’re trashing wouldn’t want to admit to, they won’t acknowledge it’s you.”
I was skeptical. “But I don’t want to put in anything bad about my friends.”
“You wouldn’t, because that’s not who it’s being snarky about. Caryn already knows her friends are awful, Megan knows who you slept with, and Sharon knows her mom is a tyrant. But Caryn will deny up and down that it could be you because she would never admit that she said she doesn’t like them, and Sharon will do the same thing because she’s scared of her mom. And no guy is reading a bridesmaid blog. It’s foolproof. And you don’t even have to shit in their pie!”
I smiled at the reference. “Madison would probably be mortified if she read this, but I’m pretty sure she hates me anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. And it’s not like I know any details about her to put in the blog. And Amy doesn’t read.”
“I think you’re fine.”
“Does the title work?”
“It’s perfect,” Becca said. “What’s your second post going to be about?”
I grinned, feeling better already. “I have so much material. Where to begin?”
CHAPTER NINE
Megan did not make my resolution to avoid the male members of her bridal party until the rehearsal dinner any easier when she and Tim moved into their new house in early October.
“It’ll make the registry go so much smoother,” she confided on the phone one night. “Living in an apartment, we didn’t have room for anything. This way we can really pick out what we need.”
“Makes sense. Do you need help moving?” I prayed she would say no.
“No.” Thank you sweet baby Jesus. “But is your schedule clear on the twenty-first?”
“Umm,” I said. “Let me look, hang on.” I pulled out my bullet journal. Dress shopping with Amy the following morning, but nothing that day. “I’ve got nothing. What’s going on?”
“Housewarming party. No gifts. Just bring yourself.”
“No gifts for real, or you say no gifts and everyone shows up with one and I look like a jerk because I didn’t?”
Megan laughed. “No gifts. Especially not from the bridal party. You guys are already spending enough on us this year.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “The bridal party,” I echoed. “So we’re all invited.”
“Of course.” She sounded confused. “You’re our best friends.” Either she was doing a really good job of never speaking of the engagement party situation again, or in the chaos of buying a house, moving, and planning a wedding, my shame had been forgotten. I excused myself from the phone call shortly thereafter and planted myself firmly on the edge of my bed.
What did you expect? I asked myself. Nothing is ever that easy. Just play it cool, act like it’s no big deal if it comes up, and don’t get drunk! “Easier said than done,” I said out loud, then sighed and walked to my closet. I couldn’t afford a new dress for the housewarming party, but I wanted to look nice. Rule number one of facing down a guy you never wanted to see again is to look your very best so he at least feels that it’s his loss, not yours.