Bridesmaiding

[katie_m]

So I'm going to be a bridesmaid in this wedding in April. Which is nice and flattering and all, and I think it'll be fun, but first of all there's stress with having to find a dress--the bride is doing the "oh, buy something blue you'll wear again! I don't want to make you wear something!" thing, which is very sweet of her but actually

Comments

[jenlev]

ack, been there, was utterly nervous. i hope it goes well. and the registry seems like a fine idea; for you and for the couple. *hugs*

ps. remind me some day to tell you the story of buying dress for the wedding where i was the "attendant", and i was *not* given the option of shopping in my own style. meep. ;)

[katie_m]

Was it truly horrifying? Ooh, was it hot pink?

[jenlev]

five little words: cabbage roses against pale blue.

no wait, three more: fake ballet slippers.

you know me well enough to imagine what a carnage the shopping experience was. the friendship did not end well...which saddened me but ultimately was not surprising. gah, some days it's very hard to be human. *sighs*

[_minxy_]

Yup. Year after college I was a bridesmaid for one of my best friends from high school, and I was stunned by how many gifts were happening. There's the bridal shower gift, the bachelorette party embarassing gift, then the actual wedding gift. I was heading from college into grad school, so I went for funny and inexpensive. Teacup for the bridal shower, dirty Madlibs for the bachelorette party, and I think I painted a canvas for them for the actual wedding gift.

Weddings, man; they're a whole industry. It freaks me out a bit.

[katie_m]

It is freaky. I tell you, the older I get, the more convinced I am that in the increasingly unlikely event I get married I'm going low-key. Unless I marry a billionaire and don't have to worry about the budget, in which case I'm flying 200 of my best friends to Tahiti or something, because why not?

[boofadil]

There have been marriages where I've bought 4 gifts by the time the wedding was over. And that's not getting a gift for two of the showers I went to. Fun.

[katie_m]

And like I said, it's not the money, or a sense that I'm being gift-grubbed--I just didn't know, and that drives me crazy. These new 'requirements' appear, and I feel like an idiot for not knowing.

[boofadil]

I totally know what you mean...it's hard enough to come up with one gift much less two or three or four and when you have to figure it out on the fly...yeah. It's more stressful than fun after a bit.

[wishfulaces]

Yes! I so feel your pain! Except my friend getting married chose the dress with me and I managed to avoid the sex-related gift, but still! Gifting! Too hard! And in April when I'm going to be stressing out about classes anyway!

[katie_m]

See, people say "oh, I don't want to have a registry, I want the gift to be personal..." No! Personal is hard! Registries are much more happymaking.

[oyceter]

Gaaaaaaah, yes. Just did a bridesmaid thing last month. Though I sort of wish I could have picked my dress, because we all ended up with electric blue. Ooo, try Macy's too! Macy's has really good sales!

And yeah. I ended up giving my own gift, a bachelorette's gift and a red envelope (Chinese tradition). Wargh. And of course, while I had my gift prepared ahead of time, I didn't really find out about the next two till a week beforehand, when I was on vacation in Taiwan!

[katie_m]

I suppose I should feel lucky that all of my cousins got married before I was old enough to be obliged to give my own gift...