Always the...

Well, I've been a bridesmaid before, but never a Maid of Honor. This is the latest honor bestowed upon me, by a Miss Jessica. The good news is I get to stand in her wedding. The bad news is I will be memorialized in her wedding photo album with kimono arms if I don't get moving!

Tonight we went to look at bridesmaid dresses. Now, I fully understand the attention is on the bride, as it should be. But just sifting through the dress collection -- engorged rhinestones, sashes, taffeta, oh my! -- was enough to make a girl jump out of a street-level window. Because, you know, being the same age as the bride and unmarried isn't bad enough? Because walking down the aisle with someone else's husband isn't enough? Because sweating whether you'll be a plus one or your usual "plus a few shots of tequila and mild single depression" isn't enough? Apparently not, because some of these dresses were horrific. Apparently there's a killer market for chartreuse and turquoise, but you have to wrestle for the ONE grey or black dress.

Don't worry, I distracted myself by looking at the fake bouquet of roses they had for brides to ostensibly walk through the mirrored dressing room with. Or the collection of tiaras. Which were in a plexiglass case, you know, just in case someone really "street" tried to bust into Angelo's of Claremont and make off with their bedazzled headgear.

I spent much of the time being VERY grateful that the bride in question has great taste and wasn't trying to make herself look even better by making a spectacle of us. I said a silent thank-you to the women who had put her through that, thus assuring she would never do the same to others (an emerald green velvet cap-sleeved gown with sausage-curled hair sealed her fate as a gentle bride, one who would care for her bridesmaids and their egos!!!)

I was so swept up in the moment, in trying to understand what brown sauce could have possibly found its way down the front of a particular pink number, when I realized that I was about to put on the misshapen (and DEFINITELY not my size) boustier that the woman had suggested I wear under the dress. A boustier that hundreds of women before me had worn, trying on this same parade of Single Friend Who Will Taste Weddingness For Just A Night dresses. I was so absentminded that I ALMOST put it on.

But then I came to my senses. Fortunately, so did Jessica. She decided on the second dress I wore (unfortunately the brown-juice-ed number had already been tried on, and the mystery continues...). As is required on any female bonding event, we then adjourned to dinner. And don't think I didn't stop by McDonald's to get a fudge sundae (it's on the 99c VALUE menu!!) on the way home. The diet starts tomorrow?