How I Planned Your Wedding (8 page)

And then there were Molly and Lindsey, my two best friends. We had been close in college, but we fell in friend-love when we all ended up in Seattle after graduation. They were the first non–family members I called when Dave and I got engaged, and both of them reacted to the news by screaming so loudly with happiness that the speaker on my cell phone was forever damaged.

They were my rocks throughout the bridesmaid fight with my mom, counseling me and encouraging me.

Yes, Dear Readers, I did say that
they
listened to my agony over deciding who to have in my wedding party. My two best girlfriends.

One day, as we were out having coffee together, I said to both of them, “You know, I really wish I could ask you to be bridesmaids, but you’re the only two people who I don’t have to play politics with. I know your feelings won’t be hurt if I don’t ask you, because you understand that no matter what you’re the most important friends I have.”

Ohhh I wish I were making this up.

How awful is that to say to a person? “I love you so much that I feel comfortable pretending to love someone else more.”

Of course, they were incredibly kind about it and didn’t point out what a jerk I was. Both of them responded that they understood, and that I shouldn’t feel bad.

When I told Dave about this conversation, he looked at me as though I had just burped up a talking salamander.

“Uh…Wiggs…those girls are the only ones I was sure you’d ask. They’re your best friends!”

“I know!” I whined. “So they can handle the rejection better! They know it’s not purrrrsonal!”

As soon as I said it I could hear how wrong it sounded.

But, again, instead of doing the right thing and taking them out for mani-pedis before asking them on bended knee to be my bridesmaids, I waited until we were tipsy one night at our local dive bar and slurred, “Hey, so, I think I probably want you guys to be my bridesmaids. But if I end up feeling like I have to ask someone else, I know you won’t mind stepping down, you know? Because I can be totally honest with you. You know? I love you guys.”

Sometime after that I got up on a pool table and did an interpretive dance to “Cold as Ice” by Foreigner.

And you know what sucks? I never retracted that clause about asking them to step down if I ended up feeling obligated to ask someone else. At the time, I drunkenly thought I was just being “real” with
them. You know, like when a reality show contestant says, “I’m not fake. I’m keepin’ it real.”

Like true friends, they were both overjoyed and excited to be bridesmaids, and to this day neither of them has ever busted my chops for being the worst bridesmaid-asker in the history of the world.

I deserve to have my chops busted, though, don’t I?

The final person I asked to be my bridesmaid was Aubrey, a girl I hated in college.

Let’s pause for a second so I can tell you how most of my female relationships have evolved: first, I meet a new girl. Immediately, I draw comparisons and find something to envy about her. In Aubrey’s case, it was her fierce model-like good looks and infuriatingly petite body. Quickly, that envy turns to hatred, so I go around talking trash about the girl until someone calls me on it and then I’m forced to stew in my own outrage, knowing deep down I’m a jealous hag and nobody feels sorry for me.

The good news is that this unfortunate tendency has forced me to develop some world-class amends-making skills.

Eventually, I came to see that I needed to get over myself and acknowledge Aubrey’s fabulosity—both as a stunningly beautiful girl and as a devoted friend.

When Dave and I got engaged, she was one of the first to congratulate me and immediately sent me a card she had designed and printed with her 150-year-old letterpress machine.

Okay, let me just say that again.
She designed and printed a card for me on her 150-year-old letterpress machine.
She’s such a classy broad.

Now, after screwing up the previous bridesmaid invitations, I finally got it right: I hand-wrote a letter to Aubrey telling her how much she meant to me and how thankful I was to have her in my life. I packaged the letter
with
her size-less-than-0-but-I-love-her-anyway bridesmaid dress and shipped it in a flat box on which I had written REQUIRED WEDDING ATTIRE ENCLOSED. It was a lovely gift, if I do say so myself, and I know that she’ll keep the letter forever.

She probably would have loved the package I sent even more if I had not put it in the mail exactly three weeks before the wedding.

That’s right, folks. Three weeks.

See, Dave and I were engaged for sixteen months, and a lot can change in that amount of time. As the wedding drew closer, Aubrey became one of my most important supporters and I slowly began to see how much I needed her in the wedding party. She had become more than a friend to me; she was a sister.

But then I hemmed and hawed for, like, two months.

Who does that? God, I suck.

Lucky for me, she took my ineptitude like a champ and never let on that I had forced her to jump through all the bridesmaid hoops (arranging transportation, getting dress alterations, etc.) in a fraction of the normal amount of time.

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I wish I could go back and send cool little packages to my girls or take each one out to lunch and pour mimosas down their throats. You know what, I might just do that right now.

But, Dear Readers, despite my terrible maid-asking skills, I’m going to go ahead and toot my own horn about how I treated my maids once they were asked. Let’s call a spade a spade: I was a pretty great bride, as far as my girls were concerned. I tried my damnedest to remember that they were cherished friends throughout the whole process, and they paid me back by keeping the champagne flowing, fixing my updo when it began to droop, enthusiastically clawing for the bouquet when I threw it and staying on the dance floor until their feet bled. And—the most important test of all—they’re still my friends today. So, given what an awesome bridesmaid experience I had, here are my thoughts on Zen and the art of bridesmaid wrangling:

A bridesmaid is not, as the title implies, there to serve you—she (or he) is your support. Historically, bridesmaids and groomsmen dressed alike and stood next to the couple as they said their vows to confuse evil spirits who would curse the marriage. They were willing
to tackle malevolent demons for their friends’ happiness. Today, many brides seem to see their maids as dress-steaming, Band-Aid–fetching slaves. But think about it: your maids are your friends. They’ve watched you fill a toilet with upchucked peach mojito, and they’ve been on boob-watch for you when you wear a sparkly, nipple-skimming top to dinner. They will answer the phone at 3:15 in the morning when you’ve thrown your engagement ring down the stairwell and are seriously considering entering a nunnery, and the next morning they’ll bring you a soy chai latte (your favorite), look you right in the puffy, red eyes, and tell you you’re pretty. They’ve been your cheerleaders, your shoulders to cry on and your trusted sisters. Be grateful to have your peeps up there with you to witness your union with your soul mate. And, you know, attempt to show that gratitude.

By asking your wedding party to stand with you, you’re honoring the friendship you have with each of them. Keep that in mind when you’re choosing their outfits and outlining their duties. I found cute dresses for my maids at Target, and at $34 a pop, I was able to gift them to my girls—and when we took them to the seamstress for alterations, she thought they were Vera Wang gowns. Booya! And on my wedding day, I made sure to take time with each of my bridesmaids to let her know how much it meant to me to have her there.

When Aubrey and Lindsey left the cocktail hour to help me remove my veil, I told them how much I appreciated it. When Lucy hugged me goodbye for the night, I let her know that her calming presence had gotten me through the more stressful parts of the day. When Melissa showed up for portraits, having executed her own runway-worthy hair, makeup and styling, I made sure to tell her how gorgeous she looked. When Joelle cried all the way through the ceremony, the signing of the marriage certificate and her toast to me, I cried with her and told her how much I loved her. And when Molly used her arms as a forklift to help me lower my bride-ass onto the toilet without soaking my dress, I thanked her before I emptied my bladder of four glasses’ worth of champagne. I’m proud I remembered to be grateful.

So here you sit, flush with engagement bliss, ready to gather your women around you and assign each of them a special role. Just remember that they already know how much you love them, and they love you, too—and they’re not going to hate you if you take your time as you decide what parts they will play in your wedding. They’ll be patient with you, just as you would with them. And, uh, try not to ask them via text message, or two weeks before the wedding, or in the midst of a drunken rampage. Shudder.

SAYING ADIEU TO YOUR SINGLEHOOD

Most brides and grooms still practice the tradition of a bachelor and bachelorette party. If you’re anything like me, you have spent many a happy hour with girlfriends fretting over what sorts of trouble your betrothed’s stupid college buddies are going to get him into. Maybe you’ve called his big brother who’s in med school to make sure he knows how to detect and diagnose the signs of alcohol poisoning. Or maybe you’ve disastrously attempted to issue an ultimatum: “Go to a strip club and you’ll need to find yourself a new fiancée.” Perhaps you’ve stood over him and dictated an email to his bachelor party attendees informing them that since he’s going to be a lawyer when he grows up, he won’t be partaking in consumption of any illegal substances OR streetwalkers. Or possibly you designed one T-shirt for every day of his bachelor party, each with a different menacing photo of your face and a caption saying some version of, “My future wife will kill you if you touch me.”

…Oh. Was that just me? Whoops. To put it bluntly, I had my grundies in a twist long before Dave started planning his bachelor party. Looking back, I had nothing to worry about, but for the record, I’m still glad I printed those T-shirts for him. They were hilarious. I sneaked them into his suitcase the night before he left and made his best friend reveal them to him once they got to the hotel.

I also lucked out, though. Instead of a typical trip to the Vegas strip, Dave wanted to go to Alaska. During the summer solstice. To run a marathon.

Yep. And eighteen of his friends agreed to come with him. They also agreed to wear costumes—Daisy Dukes and suspenders, head-to-toe neon spandex, a clown costume…

Yet I still worried. Would they find some hairy-armed, gun-slinging moose huntress to do a pole dance for him? Would the guys force Dave to drink bourbon through a beer bong and then throw him down the side of a glacier?

It’s really hard to get out of that paranoid mindset, even if you know and love your fiancé’s friends almost as much as he does. Unfortunately, you might just have to spend the weekend feeling uneasy. But here are a couple of things you can do to ease the tension:

• Have an open discussion before he goes about what sort of communication you want to have during the party. I asked Dave not to call me during the entire weekend because I knew I would be waiting by my phone, counting the seconds until I heard from him again.
  
• Plan something relaxing and fun with a friend or two during the party. I specifically didn’t want to have our bachelor/ette parties at the same time because I didn’t want either of us to be distracted by worry for one another. Still, treat yourself.
  
• Remember that the whole reason he’s having a bachelor party is that he asked you to marry him—he’ll be thinking about you the whole time. Well, okay, a good chunk of the time.
  
• If you have a close, trusted male friend on the trip, ask him to text you periodically to tell you everything’s okay. Don’t ask for details, just reassurance every so often.
  

And don’t forget—you get to have your own bachelorette party, as well. For my party, fifteen girls came to a beach house in San Diego. It was just what I wanted: quality time with my girls,
sans
distractions. We spent each day hanging out and talking, and each night we made girly drinks, had a living room dance party, went out to a couple of bars and reflected—at the ripe old age of twenty-four—on our lost yet unlamented youth.

Dave wasn’t nearly as worried about me as I was about him, but prior to my departure, he told me he wanted me to call him every night when I got home to tell him I was safe and sound.

Whatever you do for your bachelor and bachelorette parties, just make sure you have fun. Take the opportunity to reconnect with old friends, to introduce past VIPs to present VIPs in your life. And, yeah, you should probably wear a tiara.

SUSAN

As a romance writer, I believe in fairy tales. In particular, I believe in fairy godmothers. Elizabeth, an only child, has many of them. Through the years, my friends and those she made on her own have given her many spiritual gifts. Like the gorgeous, pastel-colored fairies in
Sleeping Beauty,
they gathered around, showering her with the gifts of kindness, empathy, wisdom, beauty…probably fashion sense from my friend, Carol.

Wedding time is a time to let the fairy godmothers back in. Invite the whole horde of them. You can never have enough well-wishers. Trust me on this. The bride has her chosen entourage—the wedding party. As the mother of the bride, you get to have one, too. Your girlfriends know how fun this is for you. Let them cheer you on! I spread the news like a computer virus, emailing photos and badly punctuated squeals around the globe. There’s something about the announcement of a wedding that brings people’s good cheer to the fore. I learned things about my friends’ weddings I never knew before—the hilarity, the heartache, the surprises and the bombshells.

It’s also a time to move closer to your daughter’s friends. My own wedding was so tiny, I had only the maid of honor—my sister. Elizabeth kept adding beloved friend after beloved friend until the bridal party
resembled a small army. I kept my mouth shut, however, because the nieces were in the picture, so I got my way. (Surprise.)