Adventures in wedding bliss: Learning to say no

I need to learn how to say no – and that has nothing to do with my relationship(s) with men.

I need to learn to say no to this question:

“Will you be my bridesmaid/maid of honour?”

The problem is you can’t say no to that because the bride clearly feels that you are a big enough part of her life that she wants to include you in her special day … or she thinks you are the right combination of organized and life of the party.

There is a saying, “three times a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

What about five times?

I didn’t mind the first couple – one was my best friend and the other my best friend from high school, but now I find myself in a wedding party for a girl I’ve not really spoken to in three years.

It’s not that I don’t mind being in her wedding – I’m happy she wants me around, we hung out for a short period of time, but we had fun and were close for the years we lived in the same city.

I’m just not looking forward to planning a stagette, shower, and activities for the girls on the day of the wedding. I didn’t really want to have to pay for a new dress (which I’ll totally – not – be able to wear again), shoes, transportation, wedding gifts, shower gifts, booze, lunches …

The best wedding I was in, I was told via a giant courier envelope that arrived from overseas. Inside was a bright red, floor length bridesmaid dress and a note.

If the saying three times a bridesmaid, never a bride, is based on the idea that a young woman who had been a bridesmaid three times was unable to catch the eye of unmarried males, then she never would, this wedding shouldn’t count. By my understanding, there will not be any single men in attendance.

But there will be booze.

And I guess I should be glad that I’m a bride attendant now and not in the olden days when the goal was to confuse evil spirits by dressing in identical clothing to the bride and the groom.  These spirits were known to give the couple bad luck.  Being dressed like the bride, the evil spirits would not know who was getting married.

Does this mean those bridesmaids would pick up extra bad luck?

I guess I shouldn’t complain because all I have to do is hold an extra bouquet, sign a piece of paper and help find something old, new, borrowed, blue.

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Going From a Five to a 10, the Wedding Waiter Theory

The understated, hardworking waiter. Flickr photo by hansvandenberg30

Have I ever explained my wedding/waiter theory?

It’s like the female equivalent of beer goggles.

It starts with the basic 10-point scale, with one being the lower end of who you would date and 10 being the cream of the crop.

So in my books waiters are usually about a five. They are often cute, although not particularly smart or well spoken. I’m not being mean, most waiters my age are aspiring actors or models or something, or they are really young … anyway.

But those waiters that are with catering companies or at hotel banquet halls are used to wedding parties and the unyielding cravings and requests of psycho bridezillas and her handlers – er bridesmaids. So they are really attentive, which means a five quickly becomes a six.

Now as the night wears on, I usually start to realize I am among the last single girls at the party and despite the number of times I explain that it’s by choice, I grow tired of the sympathetic looks. So, I start to think about, well, maybe I should be dating someone. And suddenly that attentive waiter is a little cuter, so say a seven.

Weddings are so good at making us single girls second … um, third, guess our status.

By the time the fourth slow dance is on — during that in between time between the “wedding” ending and the “party” starting — the wait staff is growing as tired as I am. So usually I sneak outside and chat with them in necessity for my sanity. Turns out that waiter? He’s pretty funny … and suddenly an eight.

And when it comes to booze at the wedding, the waiters control the flow of wine. Any man that keeps the alcohol flowing, in a responsible manner (of course), gets a point just in principle. And now he’s nine.

The party starts, I love to dance, so spend most of the night on the dance floor, awkwardly two-stepping with random members of the bridal party, spinning around with actual ballroom dancers, getting my grove on with other girls standing in a circle.

The waiter then usually materializes with water and, just before I leave, they get my coat. Clearly, I’ve under-valued the waiter, he’s clearly at 10 and I’m obviously in love.

I bat my eyes and gush at how awesome the waiter has been for the evening. Then, fortunately the self defense mechanism kicks in — run at the feeling of love.

I go home alone and in the morning wake up, bordering on a hangover, but still, blissfully single.

This theory is also valid at bachelorette parties, where, as the token single girl, you are expected to “get into more trouble” than everyone else … or at least provide the entertainment. I’ll have to tell you about Tony from Texas one day.

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