Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest (13 page)

“Are you kidding me?” I said.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Jason. “Quick, let’s get rid of it.” We returned the peanut butter to the kitchen and asked the staff not to put it out again while the bride was still a guest there.

A year later, Mark and Emily received a card from the inn inviting them back with an anniversary discount of 10 percent. They did not return.

Forever and Never

A
little over a year had passed since Emily’s wedding when Marjorie and Brian announced they’d be taking their turn down the aisle. I was still living in New York, still freelancing in publishing, and still dating Jason. We were twenty-nine, and it felt like it was time to start considering important things, like whether this was the relationship we wanted forever and what our next steps might be. I hadn’t told my friends—admitting it out loud seemed tantamount to relationship failure—but I was deeply conflicted. Jason was my best friend, the most important person in my life, and I couldn’t see my future clearly without him. Yet more and more I found myself thinking that if I
really
chose him, for always, and he chose me, we’d be missing out on something else, someone who would be better for each of us, and the better, if abstract, life we’d have with that other person.

The news of Marjorie’s engagement was hardly a surprise. We’d been expecting it for years, and so had she. After
finishing grad school in Maryland, Brian had moved to Nashville to be with her. In my eyes, they were taking things slowly and reasonably, though later I learned that this time long distance had not been without frustrations. Marjorie was impatient to get things moving; Brian was hung up on finding the perfect book about proposing before he considered popping the question outside the confines of a page. They lived in separate apartments for a year before moving in together, into an actual house. Three years after we’d converged on my onetime hometown for Claire’s wedding, I went to visit them and slept on a queen-sized blow-up mattress in their den. We barbecued outside on the deck in the heat of the Nashville summer and drank cold beers from the icebox outside. They coexisted in an adult fashion of which I had been envious, with cars and jobs with health benefits and dinners they’d planned ahead of time and cooked together while drinking martinis. It looked natural for them, though I didn’t know if it ever would be for me, with Jason or without him.

Shortly after the proposal, Marjorie called to ask if I would be her maid of honor. I said yes and immediately went out and bought a couple of wedding-planning books to mail to her. This was the first and only such request I’d ever received (it still is), and I took it seriously. I would help in whatever way I could, I promised. Of course, I didn’t live in the same town and might not be the right person to coordinate the shower or bachelorette, or to get in touch with vendors or do whatever my duties might be—
what might my duties be, exactly?
—but I would be there and take
care of as much as possible. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Maid of honor: This was a big deal.

Plans for the wedding began to take shape. The ceremony would be at the couple’s church in Nashville, the reception at the top of a building downtown offering panoramic views of the city. Marjorie, caught between the desires of her parents and future in-laws, and further challenged by the need to keep costs down, decided on a modest reception that she hoped would satisfy all. There would be beer and wine instead of a full bar, and filling snacks instead of a sit-down dinner. That meant crab cakes for Brian, a nod to Maryland; mini ham and turkey sandwiches for Marjorie, an homage to Southern banquet food; and a huge smoked salmon, lox without the bagels, to represent New York, where they’d met. I was invited with not just a plus-one, but with a date whose name came on the card, in calligraphy, right next to mine:
Jen and Jason
. We accepted with pleasure.
We
wouldn’t miss it for the world.

A month or so before the wedding, a high school friend who lived in Nashville now, too, threw a shower for Marjorie. The New York–based bridesmaid team, which consisted of our former roommate, Violet, Marjorie’s college friend Kate, and me, flew down for the weekend to don our most ladylike frocks and sit and watch Marjorie open her gifts while sipping sweet tea and eating dainty little cakes. I wore a purple dress I’d bought at Ann Taylor Loft. It had beige polka dots all over it and a sash around the waist and, I thought, looked precisely like what a nice, wholesome maid-of-honor-type girl would wear to a wedding shower in the South. I dutifully took photos and recorded the gifts and names
of their givers in a small pink notebook, until Marjorie’s mother, noting my unfortunate psycho-killer handwriting, took that duty over for me. I drank punch and ate finger sandwiches and mostly got over my latent horror of showers—is there anything worse than having to feign enthrallment over a bunch of brownie tins?—for one day. Violet and Kate and I had gone in together on our gift, which I did want to see Marjorie open. It was a large Le Creuset Dutch oven from Williams-Sonoma that I hoped would be a valuable contribution to the couple’s future in dining together. It was the prettiest shade of yellow-green and would look great in their kitchen. “Yay!” she said, opening the package and tossing the ribbons and paper to the side, where they were quickly collected by another party guest to make the rehearsal bouquet. “Thank you, ladies!”

Along with attending the shower, we three bridesmaids were there to help tie up any loose wedding ends. Issue Number One involved our wardrobes for the occasion. After searching all over Nashville for a gown, Marjorie had gone to visit her parents in Alabama and found a dress she loved at a David’s Bridal, that mass-market retailer that is both fearsome and functional, providing moderately priced, variously designed satin creations to the wedding-having public. Shipped to her in Nashville, the dress’s tea-length skirt, Marjorie’s rebel wink at tradition, had become a mess of wrinkles and uneven hems. While any issues were supposed to be referred to the store of purchase, the location where she’d bought it was nearly two hours away. That, combined with the matter of bridesmaid attire—we’d wanted to select our outfits together—meant a trip to her local David’s Bridal.

I had never been to a David’s Bridal. I think Marjorie was the only one who had, and she was the only one who was properly prepared. It’s a vast behemoth, with storefronts all over the country. This one was situated somewhere on the edge of town, far enough away from the city proper to lend it the geographical span required to house the hundreds or thousands of dresses it contained. Inside, among the rows and rows of endless white, mostly white, but also hunter green and taxicab yellow, rosy pink and royal purple, and blue—so many blues—and red and puce and even mahogany fabric, underneath dizzying fluorescent lighting, were sample dresses that could be tried and fitted and purchased. They were in similar fashions but different colors, or similar colors but different fashions, and somewhere in this massive array of hanging clothing you might find the one you had dreamed of, if you looked hard enough and long enough, if you put your mind to it and really, really tried.

Weaving through the racks of material were women who seemed as if they might be twins, triplets, quintuplets, or possibly clones. They were small of stature, with pins in their pincerlike, lipsticked mouths and their reddish-brownish-blondish hair cut short for practical reasons. These were the wedding-dress matrons who, I had heard tell, would usher an unwitting girl into the giant dressing room at the back of the store and, within seconds, have her pinned up, tucked in, and matched with this gown or that one. They’d prop her on a platform facing a semicircle of full-length mirrors so she could see the front, back, and sides of her look, and they’d coo and sigh and, most of all, sell the dress. Then they’d start with the add-ons: a veil, the proper underwear and
panty hose, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the garter, a wedding purse (Why? Why not?) and on and on and on. You could spend your life buying things for your wedding, buying more and more things with money that would never see the satin-lined insides of your wedding purse. These women were pros. They took no prisoners.

One such lady saw us as we entered the store, the four of us girls, dazed and clearly out of our element. The lights were blinding; the air felt thin. All the white, shiny dresses in the room loomed before us like ghosts of brides past. “Hi,” she said brightly. “Can I help you?”

We’d planned ahead that we would avoid revealing the whole truth about Marjorie’s dress, since technically it was supposed to go to another store, and we didn’t have time to be told no. Marjorie started. “I brought my wedding dress in,” she said. “They were supposed to steam it, but it’s a wreck.”

“I’ll take a look at that,” said the woman, pursing her lips to keep nonexistent pins steady. She glanced at the tag attached to the plastic wrap on the dress. “This is strange. Did you buy this here?”

Marjorie frowned, knitting her eyebrows. I knew she didn’t want to lie. I took this as my moment to be a real maid of honor. I’d fight her battles for her so the bride could stay cool, calm, collected, and honest—
bridelike—
to the last. “It’s from David’s Bridal,” I said, which was itself true. “You should have it resteamed for free. It’s only right.” Around me, Kate and Violet pretended to shop. They wanted none of this. Marjorie smiled sweetly, and the woman started punching things into the computer in front of
her. I tried to look vaguely threatening, like I was From New York and Got Things Done. “I’m sorry,” said the clerk. “I can’t find you listed in our store database.”

“We’re also here to find three bridesmaids’ dresses, and a veil, too,” I said, playing our only trump card.

“Oh?” She perked up a little.

“Yes. But, tell me, why should we continue to shop here if you can’t fix the problem that your establishment caused in the first place?” Ooh, I had this. I had this. Below the counter, Marjorie squeezed my hand.

“Hold on for a moment, please.” The woman disappeared into a small room adjacent to the checkout counter. The minutes ticked by. I hoped I hadn’t pushed too far. If she came back and said tough luck or, worse, booted us from the store, we’d be up a creek without a wedding dress. She returned, a satisfied smile on her face. “We’re happy to steam the dress again for you as a complimentary service,” she said. “Now, what else can I help you with?”

Ha
, I thought. I was the best maid of honor ever. I turned to look back at Violet and Kate, who’d discovered what might be described as the “neon princess” aisle. They were alternating between holding gowns up to themselves and doubling over in laughter.

Marjorie, in her efforts to be a laid-back, relaxed bride, had told us we could wear whatever we wanted as her attendants, but we didn’t think that would look right. As much as bridesmaids complain about hideous dictated dresses that can never be worn
again, or gowns that give the initial impression of comfort only to become chambers of torture at the actual event, in this case our matching wedding attire was completely our own doing. We had wanted uniformity. We’d wanted, I think, to be bridesmaids, and to be seen as such. We strolled through the aisles and aisles of racks, searching, and we found our gowns: chocolate-brown satin strapless concoctions with little rhinestone belts and tea-length skirts that would match Marjorie’s. They were understated and inexpensive and, to our amazement, quite comfy. (They would, in fact, later morph into chambers of fashion torture, but not until several hours in on Marjorie’s wedding day.) After we’d had the dresses fitted, we selected an array of undergarments, a pretty, simple veil for the bride, and a satin wrap she could don if it got chilly. No wedding purse, but still, the saleslady had gotten the last laugh.

We checked out with about an hour left until the three of us had to get to the airport to fly back to New York. We were in a nondescript shopping center, the natural environment for a nondescript, mammoth bridal store, and right outside there was a nondescript chain restaurant. “It’s no Per Se or anything,” said Violet, ironically, as our budgets were quite clearly far more beer than they were Champagne. “But I
suppose
it’ll do.”

We filed into a booth, ordered icy Diet Cokes all around, and were just about to place our orders for four different highly photogenic chicken salads when Kate leaned over the table. “Do I have red marks on my neck?” she asked, scratching.

We inspected. Red was the least of it. She had large welts
running from the bottom of her chin down into the V-neck of her T-shirt. “Um,” I said.

“Yeah,” managed Violet. Marjorie started digging around in her purse for some Benadryl.

“Holy shit!” Kate yelled, peering into her shirt. We sat looking at one another in shock as she rushed to the bathroom for a closer analysis of her skin condition. Was this what weddings could do to a person?

Minutes later she returned with a rueful expression and announced matter-of-factly that she had broken out in hives to her waist. “I need a real drink, I think,” she said, and we agreed a round was in order. It all became funny.

“I think Kate is allergic to David’s Bridal,” Violet quipped.

“You’re like the princess and the pea of weddings,” I added.

“Yeah, I’m so high-end,” Kate agreed, reaching toward her neck for a momentarily satisfying scratch.

Marjorie grabbed her hand. “Don’t touch it,” she said, the same way I could imagine her instructing her inevitable children when they were struck with inevitable chicken pox. Kate acquiesced and sighed, sipping her beer.

Back in New York she saw a dermatologist who confirmed she had a form of dermatitis that may have been brought about by the stress of wedding-dress shopping, or a sensitivity to certain fabrics at the store. It might have been a combination of both; it could have been something else entirely. She was prescribed steroids and an anti-itch cream, and the rash eventually went away. Whatever its cause, which we’d never know for sure, when Kate
walked down the aisle at her own wedding several years later, she was
not
wearing a dress from David’s Bridal.

•   •   •

S
ome weeks later we were flying back to Nashville, and this time Jason was with me. As he slept, I ran through what I planned to say at the rehearsal dinner and thought again about how best to fulfill my role as maid of honor. I had an anticipatory fluttering in my stomach. I’d tried on my bridesmaid dress the night before, and it fit perfectly. I couldn’t wait to see my best friend again, and to be with her for this moment. I thought back to us in high school, our crushes on boys, our confessions, our dreams. I also thought about what this wedding meant for Jason and me. For years I’d been asking my mom to get my grandmother’s ring—the one she’d designed herself and had a jeweler make using the diamond Hamilton Booth had given her before he died—out of the security vault at the bank. She had finally said she’d give it to me on my thirtieth birthday, which was now just a few months away. I’d imagined it being my own engagement ring. But I was no longer so sure that Jason and I would still be together for that date. We’d been a couple long enough that I should know if he was the one, I reasoned. If I still didn’t know for sure, I worried that could only mean he wasn’t.