I swung by the dress store today to pay Walter a visit. Walter is the name of my wedding dress. I am having a torrid relationship with 20 yards of silk organza, and I must say, it is very satisfying.
While I was twirling around the store in Walter, The Other Bride asked if I liked her dress. I told her that it was beautiful, and we exchanged some ideas on how to embellish it a little more. Her two friends, a married couple, were very friendly and chimed in periodically.
Here's where things get weird.
The man asked when I was getting married, and where. He then divulged that he and his new wife (proud sweep of the hands) had recently gotten married in the Vatican. I was immediately intrigued, and asked a ton of questions. Did the pope officiate? Was it in the actual Vatican, Vatican? Did his wife have to cover up a little more to please the powers that be? Because the Vatican is like The Battleship Galactica for Catholics, right? Some extra special mojo is supposed to happen there, like maybe you get inspired to populate the earth with the fruit of your womb?
All four of us chatted for a bit, and when The Other Bride went to change back into her normal clothes, they both turned to me.
"Listen, is your fiance good looking?"
"He is."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
"Do you guys like to party?"
"What do you mean, 'party?'"
They were swingers, and wanted to know if we were into some down home, South Beach, no strings attached fun. They had an "open relationship," they said, and only picked out "nice looking" people to "party" with. I declined their offer nicely.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see myself mouthing the words. Clad in a veil and a wedding dress.
Of all the places in the world where you would expect an offer of a foursome, the wedding dress store is usually not one of them. And never while you're in The White Wedding Dress, which is supposed to symbolize innocence, purity, and *ahem* no prior knowledge of sinful, earthly temptations. Gotta love this city.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Saga of the Bridesmaids Dresses
I had big plans for the bridesmaids dresses, oh yes I did.
I had visions of all my girls, clad in slinky sage green cheongsams, slit up to *here*, hair adorably pinned up, rocking that Modern Asian Chic. And because Miami doesn't house a large enough Chinese population to warrant a proper Chinatown (sorry guys, that stretch of North Miami Beach is a fucking joke. Dublin has a bigger Chinatown than that) - I did the next best thing.
I went online.
My friends, if any of you are planning a wedding, you will soon find out what an invaluable resource the internet is. I have no idea how brides managed to plan weddings before the advent of this wonderful, divine, instrument of God. Need to contact vendors and research quotes while you're at work? It's a cinch. Just remember to minimize your windows before The Big Cheese walks by. But ordering your bridesmaids dresses online? Never do that. And never (ever! ever! ever!) order anything that has to be shipped directly from China, in flimsy packaging, with a cryptic return policy that promises everything but guarantees nothing. Don't do this, even if the pictures look great on the website, even if half your bridesmaids are in California, while the other half are in Miami, and even if you think you can save them money.
The first phone call came from my mom. "Uh, Debbie's dress came. The dress looks...different."
"Different, how?"
"The green is very light. And the dress is sized too large."
I decided to wait till I actually saw the dress, before making any decisions. As it happened, my fiance and I flew out to CA the next weekend, where I held up the offending article of clothing with two shaking hands and tried hard not to scream. It was horrible. It was as if Suzy Wong was thrust into an episode of "In Living Color." What was supposed to be a sleek, sylph-like cheongsam in a muted sage green, was a mass of lime-green and gold threads and garish flower designs. I held it up to my little sister, who scowled plaintively up at me.
"This is awful," I said.
"Yeah, Bev. I look ghetto."
Every family has their loudmouthed, irreverent member. That would be me. My sister is the sweet, docile one. So when sweet, docile Debbie pronounces a dress "ghetto," you know that the true, unadulterated effect lies somewhere between Flava Flav's Flava of the Month, and the cellulite-thighed 200 lb stripper in Lil' Jon's "Get Low" video. Now, I've been known to do a lot of not-so-nice things in my life, but sending my best friends down the aisle in a ghetto Chinese cheongsam? Uncool. Like, reincarnated as a cockroach, uncool.
So my bridesmaids dutifully submitted their returns. Here again is the all too important lesson of the personal being political. The recent spate of faulty exports from China - toothpaste, pet food, children's toys, seafood - should have set off alarm bells in my head. 30 day return policy? Exchanges and refunds? Customer service? Psscch. These are American affectations. The rest of the world, I conveniently forgot, operates within their own set of regulations. The free market, capitalist, anti-government regulation ones. The ones that don't protect the consumer. The ones that would leave me and my bridesmaids high and dry, with 6 ghetto ass lime green cheongsams. It took a series of strongly worded exchanges between The Attorney Bridesmaid and The Ghetto Chinese Dress Store, before they would agree to 100% refunds.
I went back to the drawing board, a little older, a little wiser and a lot more discerning. Yesterday, my bridesmaids and I did the obligatory trek down Miracle Mile. Armed with iced drinks from Starbucks and a steely sense of purpose, we scoured the racks upon racks of dresses. I loved having my girls around me. Normally, when salespeople come at me with a frothy, vomit-worthy taffeta frock, my knee-jerk reaction is to look them in the eye and yell "No." Sometimes this comes across a little too forcefully. I can't help it. I was born impatient. But watching my bridesmaids slice through the inner caverns of dress stores, never stopping to second-guess, always trusting their instincts - I felt a sudden rush of warmth.
These were my best friends. In exquisite floor length gowns, twirling and looking pretty. But what are bridesmaids dresses really, if not team jerseys? They don't come emblazoned with retarded looking dolphins, and they won't stand up to an afternoon of keg stands, grass stains, and tailgating. But every single friend was wearing this lovely dress, because she was part of a team. My team. And this is what's beautiful about friendship, the fact that you have people who don't have to be on your team, but who choose to, regardless. Who would go through The Big Game with you, wins and losses be damned, always loyal, always united.
For a girl who went to a school without a football team, I sure came away with rock solid one. Rah, rah, rah. I am a lucky sonofabitch.
I had visions of all my girls, clad in slinky sage green cheongsams, slit up to *here*, hair adorably pinned up, rocking that Modern Asian Chic. And because Miami doesn't house a large enough Chinese population to warrant a proper Chinatown (sorry guys, that stretch of North Miami Beach is a fucking joke. Dublin has a bigger Chinatown than that) - I did the next best thing.
I went online.
My friends, if any of you are planning a wedding, you will soon find out what an invaluable resource the internet is. I have no idea how brides managed to plan weddings before the advent of this wonderful, divine, instrument of God. Need to contact vendors and research quotes while you're at work? It's a cinch. Just remember to minimize your windows before The Big Cheese walks by. But ordering your bridesmaids dresses online? Never do that. And never (ever! ever! ever!) order anything that has to be shipped directly from China, in flimsy packaging, with a cryptic return policy that promises everything but guarantees nothing. Don't do this, even if the pictures look great on the website, even if half your bridesmaids are in California, while the other half are in Miami, and even if you think you can save them money.
The first phone call came from my mom. "Uh, Debbie's dress came. The dress looks...different."
"Different, how?"
"The green is very light. And the dress is sized too large."
I decided to wait till I actually saw the dress, before making any decisions. As it happened, my fiance and I flew out to CA the next weekend, where I held up the offending article of clothing with two shaking hands and tried hard not to scream. It was horrible. It was as if Suzy Wong was thrust into an episode of "In Living Color." What was supposed to be a sleek, sylph-like cheongsam in a muted sage green, was a mass of lime-green and gold threads and garish flower designs. I held it up to my little sister, who scowled plaintively up at me.
"This is awful," I said.
"Yeah, Bev. I look ghetto."
Every family has their loudmouthed, irreverent member. That would be me. My sister is the sweet, docile one. So when sweet, docile Debbie pronounces a dress "ghetto," you know that the true, unadulterated effect lies somewhere between Flava Flav's Flava of the Month, and the cellulite-thighed 200 lb stripper in Lil' Jon's "Get Low" video. Now, I've been known to do a lot of not-so-nice things in my life, but sending my best friends down the aisle in a ghetto Chinese cheongsam? Uncool. Like, reincarnated as a cockroach, uncool.
So my bridesmaids dutifully submitted their returns. Here again is the all too important lesson of the personal being political. The recent spate of faulty exports from China - toothpaste, pet food, children's toys, seafood - should have set off alarm bells in my head. 30 day return policy? Exchanges and refunds? Customer service? Psscch. These are American affectations. The rest of the world, I conveniently forgot, operates within their own set of regulations. The free market, capitalist, anti-government regulation ones. The ones that don't protect the consumer. The ones that would leave me and my bridesmaids high and dry, with 6 ghetto ass lime green cheongsams. It took a series of strongly worded exchanges between The Attorney Bridesmaid and The Ghetto Chinese Dress Store, before they would agree to 100% refunds.
I went back to the drawing board, a little older, a little wiser and a lot more discerning. Yesterday, my bridesmaids and I did the obligatory trek down Miracle Mile. Armed with iced drinks from Starbucks and a steely sense of purpose, we scoured the racks upon racks of dresses. I loved having my girls around me. Normally, when salespeople come at me with a frothy, vomit-worthy taffeta frock, my knee-jerk reaction is to look them in the eye and yell "No." Sometimes this comes across a little too forcefully. I can't help it. I was born impatient. But watching my bridesmaids slice through the inner caverns of dress stores, never stopping to second-guess, always trusting their instincts - I felt a sudden rush of warmth.
These were my best friends. In exquisite floor length gowns, twirling and looking pretty. But what are bridesmaids dresses really, if not team jerseys? They don't come emblazoned with retarded looking dolphins, and they won't stand up to an afternoon of keg stands, grass stains, and tailgating. But every single friend was wearing this lovely dress, because she was part of a team. My team. And this is what's beautiful about friendship, the fact that you have people who don't have to be on your team, but who choose to, regardless. Who would go through The Big Game with you, wins and losses be damned, always loyal, always united.
For a girl who went to a school without a football team, I sure came away with rock solid one. Rah, rah, rah. I am a lucky sonofabitch.
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