8. Always the bridesmaid... Never a bridezilla...

You know the saying right?

Well it genuinely seemed for a long time that I was destined to be a bridesmaid forever.  Think of the film '27 dresses' and you will get the picture...

1. 'The 'awwww cute' factor'

It all started off as a small 4 year old as flower girl for my auntie... My sister and I looked picture perfect matched in red and white sailor girl dresses with white hats and posies... 

(We were dressed as matching twins for most of our childhood, despite the 3 year age gap... hated it at the time, but looking back it was sweet... Even when we were 15 and 18 respectively ... Lol) 

The next time was for other relatives, where we dressed in blue velour jumpsuits with silver thread through them... (Excellent choice as it meant they got converted to cool party tops afterwards :-))

The time after, more family stuff and we were dressed in matching pant suits with short hair and little pig tails tied with ribbon... 

(However looking back now ... We just summed up the 80's.  Why did having a pixie crop with wispy pig tails at the back of a shaved head EVER seen like a good idea???? 

Then it was all about big hair, big earrings, but yet so innocent... Gosh how we have changed 😉)

2. The defining leap into adulthood...

However, these days of innocence never prepared me for the world of bitchiness that descends when a bunch of women step up to be 'proper' bridesmaids... Or indeed, brides...

3. 'Meringue anyone?'

As a bridesmaid in the 80's, fashion clearly never made it out of bed the day my peach meringue dress was chosen for me by the bride who wanted to look like the female star in Top Gun...  

Imagine if you will, the bride in a white meringue of lace that looked like she had walked through a net curtain factory, with Clara the long distance lorry driver hair*... 

And me that looked like a toilet roll dolly cover... 

Turns out that she chose an ugly dress so I wouldn't upstage her... I was a spotty teenager with train tracks and glasses... I mean really?? 

(* See pigeonstreet. com for reference)

4. Bridezilla the Hun

Then there was the time when I was asked to be chief bridesmaid to the fiancée of a longstanding male friend of mine.  

Although I thought it strange at the time, she didn't have any friends in the same country as her, so had asked me... Well it transpires that she thought her fiancé and I were having an affair (we weren't), and she wanted to keep an eye on me...???

Anyway she was quite a strange individual... And either incredibly brass necked, conniving or just plain mean.

First off, she was year behind me at uni doing same course... Turns out she copied most of my work when I offered to help her.  I also lent her  my books... Which I never got back.

She also ended up leaving me for the bill for her hen weekend as well as the hairdresser on the morning of the wedding... 'Cos she never carried cash.  

(She also thought nothing of going off with various guys on her hen night which I was scandalised by, but maybe I am a prude)

The night before the wedding, she sent me a list of requirements I was to bring with me - grapes, strawberries, champagne... Actually nothing I wouldn't have taken anyhow, but being instructed to do so kind of put my nose out...

AND she dumped me with looking after the groom's vacant cousins that she didn't like...

Suffice to say, when the groom found out (and not from me I hasten to add), he was absolutely furious... Marriage lasted less than 6 months as it turns out she was not squeaky clean in a number of ways!!!

5. 'It's my party...'

Then there was the whole story of my first wedding... Bridesmaids that hated each other, squabbled amongst themselves and even literally ended up chucking tiaras at each other...

Things became so tense that I had to hold a 'council of war' dinner to set the bridesmaids straight (mainly my ex's cousin) on a few things... Like the fact that I wasn't going to pay for a whole suite of undergarments and tanning sessions for them, whilst pointing out that inviting their friends to the wedding really wasn't appropriate when it was MY day...

... In fact I was so adamant that I was going to be honest and blunt without interruption, I made a spicy pepper soup for starters... Except it was more like a fire starter...

On the upside, it burned everyone's mouth so much that they couldn't talk back... 

Of course, best laid plans and all that ... I had refused to have my bridesmaids spend the night before with me seeing as they were all squabbling ... Instead I opted for the company of the best man's fiancée.  Who then spent the evening telling me all the stories from the stag weekend that I hadn't been told... And she had even brought photos!!

And if things couldn't possibly get any worse, the wedding day itself started with rain, I had packed the wrong bridal underwear, I had to apologise to the makeup and hair people for the one Po-faced bridesmaid, and then had to stifle my laughter as the same Po-faced bridesmaid then split her dress as she was getting dressed...

I shouldn't have laughed but by that point it was better to have found humour in everything :-)

Of course, I have to mention the infamous family photo which still graces my parents home to this day...

It's a very sweet photo of an older sister imparting words of wisdom, whilst fixing my dress before going into the church to meet my fate ...true love.

The actual truth was my sister saying "it's not too late sis.  Get back in the car..."

If only I had listened... Lol 😄😄😄

6. 'The Makeshift Bridesmaid'

There is nothing quite so flattering as being the understudy / stand in.

This doesn't just happen in theatrical circles, but clearly the wedding circuit too...

Take this one time (at band camp...) I was asked to be chief bridesmaid to one of my sister's friends...

Odd? Yes.  But the selection was based on the fact that I lived 3 miles away from her and my sister was 500 miles away...

She also used my house as a free house to stop and 'borrow' bottles of wine if she was entertaining.  Strange cookie.

Then there was the whole pre-wedding makeup experience where our faces literally got sprayed with foundation from an airgun spray... Lets just say, picture a typical orange Essex girl look... On a blue tinged Scot....

However, the wedding itself was fun...in a medieval castle, and if my mum ever asks what an armoire is again... Well lets just say that's probably not a story  for public consumption...

The most intriguing part of the day was watching the stretch limo trying to do a 400 point turn to get through the narrow archway into the castle on a 90 degree turn in a lane ... if you can imagine the scene with the cart in 'Austin Powers' you will get the gist :-)

7. 'Missing in Action'

Aaah the one wedding where I failed in all my bridesmaids duties.  And not even for anything exciting like having a dalliance with the best man or ushers!!

(Unfortunately real life is nowhere as near as exciting as 'Friends' lol)

Instead, this was the wedding where I discovered I had a fish allergy... And subsequently spent half of the meal and ALL of the reception passed out in the bathroom after doing a good impression of that girl in 'The Omen'.

I wasn't even missed by newly wed husband... Although friends did ask him why I wasn't doing my usual duck ass impression on the dance floor...

(I was ultimately fine BTW... It's amazing what cold showers, shot of adrenaline and antihistamines can do for a girl in distress... The funny thing was that most of the wedding guests were either medical staff or in the pharmaceutical trade!)

8. The 'Return the Favour' Bridesmaid

Been one of these twice ... The first for my sister which was great... And another for a friend ... Which was not so great!

Talk about seeing things from different perspectives!!  Whereas I did strive to be fair, include everybody, invite suggestions and generally get everyone involved as much as they wanted... Well suffice to say my friend did not.

There was no shopping together for dresses... Ordered online without us viewing them.  Same with shoes.  Of the 4 bridesmaids we were told what hairstyle and makeup to wear despite the fact that we were literally all shapes, sizes and colours...

(Can I just say at this point that a garish orange dress does not look good against flaming red hair.  No, really.)

It really took the biscuit when we were given target weight loss figures to reach so we wouldn't spoil the photos...

Funnily enough the friendship kind of fizzled out after that... Not sure if she ever really understood why...! 

9. 'Lights, camera, action' 

This has to be one of my all time favourite weddings, and one I had the privilege of being a bridesmaid for :-)

The happy couple are genuinely fantastic people, and have a sideline passion in movies... And the entire wedding was based around a movies / Oscar theme.

However, the bridesmaids on the other hand... Well maybe there will be a movie made out of all the mini dramas that went on between us all...

(First dibs.. i would like to be played by Julia Roberts in that case...)

There were 11 bridesmaids (yes, you did read that correctly ... 11 bridesmaids... And they were all size 6 / 8 / 10... Aside from me... Well I do like being different)

To put it bluntly, we were a mixed bunch who wouldn't naturally choose to be friends, or even mix in the same circles, if it weren't for the bride being the common denominator...

From the po-faced prima donna who would only wear 'Karen Millen', to the one who couldn't wear heels or strappy sandals as her feet were too fat...

Or the perpetual late arrival who drove everyone insane with her timekeeping, through to the sincere and gentle quiet ones who unfortunately couldn't handle their drink...

Or indeed, to the medically trained ones who were quick to give diagnoses but were perhaps not so big on the sympathy vote...

Of course I also can't fail to mention the overbearing bridesmaids mummies who also had their children as part of the wedding party... 

I mean, how much can they bleed people dry?  I would have thought that the fact they had been asked would be honour enough but no... It appeared that they also needed tights, cardigans, shoes, bags and headbands to complete the children's outfits...

Then of course there were the penny pinchers who made a scene about paying an extra £2 on top of their bill for a tip 'as that was not what they had calculated'...

Or the younger contingent who thought that as we landed in Paris and whisked away by minivan, decided to put the fear of god into everyone by announcing 'this is like the scene from 'Taken'.... 

Gasp, shock horror... We were all going to be turned into prostitutes for the Eastern Europeans...

I don't think so.  And jeez, thought I was supposed to be the drama queen??

Anyhow, the wedding day was truly amazing, all went smoothly, photos were beautiful and the speeches were certainly memorable ... And no-one can ever ask for anything more :-)

10. So.... Finally....

After all my various experiences I still love weddings... Preferably not to have another one of my own, but been 'party' to enough of them to think I could become a wedding planner... 

Then I would get paid for my wise words, sage and practical advice... and live up to my previous nickname of 'ninja bridesmaid' :-)

(That name in itself would take a whole other blog to explain... So I may return to that later....)