Because You Have To: Weddings

A few Saturdays ago, my cousin Rob married his longtime fiancée, Jackie. This was a totally happy occasion, as Rob is a great person and Jackie his equal in every way. I don’t know if anyone ever wishes for in-laws, but I really don’t see how you could hope to get anyone sweeter than Rob or Jackie for your own. Still, as it is with most weddings, no matter how much you love the bride and groom, there’s always a slight sense of dread when it comes to actually attending the event. And that is precisely what I was feeling when the day was finally upon us.

I had several concerns about attending this wedding, first and foremost being, of course, that I had absolutely nothing to wear. I don’t go to weddings that often, and I have little or no need for dressy clothes in my day-to-day life. Because of this, not only did I have no formal wear in my closet, I also had no idea how to do formal wear properly. By doing a little snooping before hand (ie, asking everyone I knew who was invited to the wedding what they were going to wear) I figured that I could get away with some kind of sassy business attire, maybe even pants. Armed with my new info, I hit the mall with my favorite shopping partner, my grandma, Vivian, and came away with a really cute, appropriate outfit – and my very first pair of stilettos, which I have to say I really, really love. Sure, I couldn’t feel my second and third toes on my left foot for a week or two after the wedding, but the shoes looked hot and – I’ll admit it – were a nice change from my usual Converse and slip-on Vans. After the successful, virtually painless purchase of the ensemble, I was feeling more optimistic about the wedding day.

Optimism is a funny thing though. As any lady will tell you, once you have a cute outfit locked, you can convince yourself to do most things based solely on the confidence boost you get from knowing you look good. I’m fairly sure that I was riding that train right up until the day of the event, when the pessimism set back in and the list of horrible things that could go down starting compiling itself in my head. For example, as I am certain it is at most weddings, Rob and Jackie’s was sure to have a modicum of familial weirdness, which I was most definitely not looking forward to encountering. Another thing: I don’t dance (or rather, I haven’t figured out how to dance in public without looking like some crazy Elaine impersonator), and at a traditional wedding, it’s hard to avoid dancing. Then there’s the added pressure of the bouquet toss. As is well documented, I am single, and being the age that I am, that apparently makes me a prime bouquet toss participant. And how about the fact that you inevitably get greeted by someone you know you should know but then proceed to blank on their name when it comes time to return the salutation? Those things, and a whole host of other equally heinous situations could go down at a wedding at any given time, and, well, I was pretty much at a DefCon 10 level of anxiety when it came time to go to the wedding.

As it turned out, I didn’t really have to worry about any of those things. The family stuff thankfully – mercifully - took a back seat to the happiness of the day. I didn’t have to dance, mainly because whenever anyone asked me, I pointed out that the floor looked very slick and that my shoes were very new (this actually made me love the shoes even more). I managed to escape the bouquet toss simply by lying low behind a tall centerpiece when the DJ called all the single gals to the floor (though my Aunt Virginia almost blew my cover by maniacally pointing from me to the dance floor, at which point I slunk out of my chair and made a beeline to the open bar…it’s funny how Cosmopolitans can deaden the meddling of batty aunts, isn’t it?). And as far as blanking on names goes, I found that if you mumble, you can pretty much get away with calling anyone “Janet” without them ever noticing (though methinks the open bar helped with that one too). All in all, it was a nice event, and I think I enjoyed myself (though that could just be the relief that it’s over talking…).