An Open Letter To My Friends Who Are Openly Planning Weddings

I am so so so very happy for you. I really am, I swear. You have found the love of your life, your best friend, your partner in crime and you are making it official and promising to be together forever. I have allowed myself that 15 seconds of panic where the opening duns of Beethoven’s 5th symphony blasts through my brain as a soundtrack to the “I’m going to die alone and/or with 5-50 dogs” monologue and I reminded myself that I feel fine and awesome and that I am not in a place financially, emotionally, or professionally where I am ready to meet the ever elusive “one” — the one that you have already found of your own.

I am so happy for you and I am excited to put on my blue suede shoes and dance the night away, maybe make an ill-advised impromptu speech, and cry at how beautiful you look in your wedding dress, and also cry about the how the last time I saw you in a wedding dress it was the one we bought at the thrift store for that costume party sophomore year. Remember that one? Someone pulled it out of a heap of old dresses that smelled like death and we all thought it looked too something in all the wrong places and then it fit you like a glove and you ran around campus in it all day?

I just have a few thoughts as you come out of the engagement euphoria and go into logistics mode.

1. If you do not make me a bridesmaid – my feelings will not be hurt. IN FACT – if you have too many? I volunteer as tribute. I do not need to be in the wedding party to feel like I am a part of your special day.

2. A step further – please please please do not ask me to be a bridesmaid. I am poor. I do not like being told what I must wear. I don’t let strangers do my hair. I do not like fake eyelashes. I do not like a dress with sashes, I do not like hairspray or fake tans, I do not like them sam-I-am.

3. I also am really excited to see your dress, but the step-by-step playback of how you had to get lace sent from Point A to Point B and then everything had to get to Point C but then back to Point A is just, so not why I was calling you to catch up. I want to hear about how YOU are doing, how YOU are feeling. I want to hear about your job, your fiancé, your parents. I want to hear about all of the things we talked about before the wedding.

4. I also don’t want to hear about tastings of any kind. Wine. Food. Cake. Signature Cocktails. I will be there, I will eat the food, drink the wine, smuggle extra pieces of cake home in my purse, and spill the signature cocktails accidentally at first, and then on purpose, and everything will taste great…especially after all of the wine.

5. I also don’t want to hear about centerpieces. No matter what anyone says about them. Having some dead branches arranged in a glass vase with some white roses to “fill the space because its such a big room” is a colossal waste of time and money. Also, in my experience it limits my ability to people watch.

6. A follow up to that – I was recently at a wedding and trying to speak with someone diagonally across from me, and the glass vase kept making like a magnified fishbowl affect that was both distracting and also kind of made me feel more drunk than I was. None of those please thank you.

7. Maybe one shower. Having an engagement party, and then a bridal shower, and then a bachelorette party and then the wedding is wildly demanding. I love you so much but since when have we ever commanded that as part of our friendship you owe 4 weekends of undivided attention. Yes when we were in college this was easy, but now we all live in different cities and it takes time and money and how am I supposed to start falling in love myself if every time I meet a guy I’m away for the next 3 weekends going to different bridal events? This isn’t bitter, it’s just realistic.

8. Hors d’oeuvres at the cocktail hour – one bite hors d’oeuvres (pigs in a blanket, skewers with mini caprese bites) …not two bite (spanakopita) very messy and hard to juggle with all of the signature cocktails I’ll be holding.

9. SHORT CEREMONY – and maybe have the priest run his homily past you right quick…those dudes can go down some weird and uncomfortable tangents.

10. If the band plays “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas… I will probably go on a rant about appropriate wedding music vs. inappropriate wedding music. “I Gotta Feeling” is the latter.

11. The band should not play anything by The Black Eyed Peas or Ke$ha.

12. ORGANIZE AN AFTER PARTY. There I will allow ke$ha…still no black eyed peas.

But really. Remember – this is about being someone’s wife, this is not about being a bride. After the Instagram hashtag, and the separate wedding email account, and invitations and the wedding planners from hell and the registry and the veil v. no veil debate – it’s about being happy for all of the days after that day you stand in that beautiful dress.

And about the dress – don’t go overboard…you looked just as beautiful in the one from the thrift store.