Wedding Bell Blues

I don't know what it is about weddings, but it's like the minute someone gets a ring on their finger or puts a ring on someone else's it's like they go completely mad.  And it's not self-contained madness, either--it spreads like a contagion until all involved are so hopelessly entangled in it that they can't escape.  Suddenly it is no longer their wedding but our wedding and you can't walk into a room without someone asking you where they can go to dye shoes that they bought in another state, or they're asking you if you can write an entire scroll in calligraphy, or they want to make sure you're okay with taking a microphone at the reception since they don't want to pay an extra four hundred dollars for an MC, or they want your opinion on plastic party favors from Oriental Trading when they're supposed to be wishing you a happy birthday.

Look, it's not like I think we should be giving people $1400 sofas.  But nobody put a gun to my father's head and said he had to give them the sofa.  He's just looking for any excuse to decry that wedding and bring attention back to his own wedding.  (Also, apparently getting engaged means all parties involved reduce everything to level of teen.  Things are definitely getting bad when I am expected to be the grown-up.)

And then there's the whole shower business.  I don't see how showers are so great in this day and age.  Begging everyone's pardon, but where in the Wonderful Big Giant Book Of Unspeakable Horrors does it say that people should get prizes from their friends for getting married? You're getting married--your groom is the prize.  Personally, I'd take a good-looking guy with strong arms over a Crock-Pot any day.  Who in hell really wants a Crock-Pot?

(I can't give my father and his bride a Crock-Pot, they got one for Christmas.  I would also like to know where in the Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors that it says the only acceptable thing to give as a wedding-present is a Crock-Pot.  Now I can't think of anything else to give them.  Please don't ask me about the cake thing.  I can't talk about it without my vision clouding with rage, and that makes me trip on things.)

What I'm saying is that when I had my apartment, I wasn't getting it because I was getting married.  I was getting it because I had temporarily taken leave of my sanity, which is a whole other story that everyone has either already heard or will not get to hear.  The point is, I didn't have a shower and therefore the cups in my cupboard don't really match, especially since I broke four or five of them the last couple of days I was in the apartment and drinking all the rest of the alcohol that was in the fridge.  In fact, I broke so many of them that I ended up with none and had to drink the last of the Chardonnay out of the measuring cup, which was made of Pyrex and therefore sturdier against my drunken shenanigans.  Just try and picture me in a completely empty apartment with a giant trash bag full of stuff, a television on the floor next to an air mattress and me in cutoffs and a bra drinking Chardonnay out of a measuring cup.  (Matt pictured it as "the most embarrassing story ever! How come you never told me about this? I love it!")

Anyway, I never took the cups that my father was trying to push on me.  Not just because of their totally un-hip ladybug design but also because they were made of that funny kind of plastic that always tastes dusty.  What he did manage to push on to me were about seven non-matching forks, four non-matching knives, some spoons and a rusty can opener that didn't really go with anything.  The only reason my awesome black dishes and bowls and coffee cups and excellent scallop-shell serving plate match is because it took me about two hours at the Salvation Army to find them all and wrestle one of the cups away from an old lady.  So I didn't get to have a shower or anything.  How come? Are showers only a prize you get to have when you get married? It's not like not being married makes me a bad person or anything.  (Really, that's more about the trashy cutoffs and bra drinking out of the measuring cup thing.)

What I'm saying is, the thing with bridal showers is that it's sort of an unspoken reality that everyone hates them.  The only one who has any fun is the bride, and that's only because she's getting tons of junk to fill up her cupboards with.  Everyone else just sort of makes polite small talk and waits for it to be over.  Or, if you're like me, you head straight for the bar and hope like hell that the hors d'ouerves are something awesome like sate sticks or bruschetta instead of cheese and pineapples bespined with toothpicks. 

Bear in mind that this has nothing to do with whether or not we like the bride.  More often than not, we actually think the bride is really cool, and it's because we like her so much that we suffer through the intolerable bore of a shower so she can collect her loot.  I mean, even she'd be bored if she weren't getting all that stuff.  Like when you come back after trick-or-treats and everyone dumps their bags out onto Christine's mom's living-room carpet?

I don't have anything to wear to the horror events either.  I spent this entire evening in Valley Stream trying to shop for an outfit for stage one, the first shower, and couldn't find a damn thing.  This is, of course, in no way my fault.  This is simply the universe trying to make it impossible for Princess to at least make it through the horror events looking gorgeous (especially since family seems intent on parading Princess around rather than letting her stare quietly at a piece of bread until the festivities are over.) EMPIRE WAISTS.

I didn't work so hard to get back down to 120 lbs. just so everything could have an empire waist.  I don't care how thin you are, empire waists make everyone look like they are about to give birth.  Just my luck--Smug Marriedness has allied with my other mortal enemy, Smug Motherhood, to turn even my weight-loss victories into tragedy.  Just because every celebrity suddenly thinks it's cool to have a baby, I am now suffering from dresses that are too small in the bust and too billowy in the waist.  What happened to my generation of girls? I am a victim of Cosmopolitan culture, and I have been taught relentlessly for years that it is not okay to be fat.  Now, all these dresses are contradicting what has been hammered into my head all these years (that every single thing I eat is an indulgence and eating it an act of weakness) and nothing fits me.

Dozens of Oreo Cakesters left uneaten, countless afternoons skipping lunch, just so everything could have an empire waist.  I feel like a scientist who's just realized her entire life's work has been a complete failure.

Stage one shower on Saturday kicks off the whole circus, and I still don't have anything to wear.  I am going to have to leave the country or something.