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| (The Impressive Clergyman, from The Princess Bride) |
So my latest bridesmaid dress arrived yesterday. (No, this is not a Red&Brett post. Stop getting ahead of the story!)
A friend of mine from the theatre is getting married this June. Between the two of us we couldn’t find a “normal” picture of me for her wedding webpage when they were setting it up, if that tells you anything about our friendship. (I’d post some of the goofy photos, but they’re packed.) The theatre is a strange place and she and I were two peas in a pod while she lived here. She moved on, first to southern New Jersey and we still got together occasionally, and then back to her native New England, where I visited her a couple years ago. (That’s a post in itself, as soon as I unpack my photos!)
I’m excited for the wedding because it will be fun, although it will also be a huge expense I probably can’t afford. Weddings themselves don’t excite me. I’m not that kind of girl. It’s the people that make it worthwhile to be a part of the event. In this case, I am INCREDIBLY honored that she asked me to be in it, because she only has THREE bridesmaids!
Wow. One out of three. That’s someone important.
This is my 4th time as a bridesmaid, and my 6th time directly involved in a wedding.
The other bridesmaid dresses (sorry, no un-packed photos):
Dress 1. Zeus’(see pantheon here ) wedding: violet
Dress 2. Diana’s wedding: lilac
Dress 3. College roommate’s wedding: burgundy
Dress 4. (to the right>>): Navy! Yea!
I have nothing against purple, but really, it would be a statistical anomaly to be in purple ONCE MORE, because way back to my first time ever participating in a wedding…
When I was 5 I was flower girl in a cousin’s wedding. In case you can't tell due to the picture fading, that's lavender dress…
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| I was crying because the sun was in my eyes. |
ACTUALLY, I was only 5 because I insisted that “You can’t be flower girl until you’re five!” I don’t know where I got that idea in my head, but I just knew that was the rule. My cousin’s wedding was in June, and my “technical” birth date is in July. (I don’t usually celebrate it then, even now.) I remember sitting on my mother’s lap, crying that I couldn’t be flower girl because I wasn’t old enough, and nobody in my family could figure out what was wrong with me. It was a huge freakin' deal to Little Red! I can only imagine their confusion.
Mom: If you don’t want to be flower girl, you don’t have to.
Little Red: I want to! But I CANT!
Mom: Why can’t you?
Little Red(weeping): Because I’m only FOUR!
~~ apparently Little Red had age issues. But when you’re part of a large family, EVERYTHING seems to be ruled by age.
Mom(pacifying): That’s okay. We’ll still let you be in the wedding.
Little Red: NO! I CAN’T! I’m too young!
~~ Little Red was SO stubborn! Nobody was going to tell me I was allowed to do something I wanted to do anyway!...wait, what?
In the end…and my siblings remember this with much grumbling about their crazy little sister upsetting the whole family… my parents agreed to have my birthday in May that year. Little Red wasn’t going to be fooled by having a party on the wrong date, though. Oh no! They had to assure me that there would be nothing for me in July that year.
Nothing at all. Dad came through like a champ: “If we’re doing this in May, that’s it. No cake, no presents, no party in July,” was the assurance I was given.
…and believe me, Little Red would have felt cheated if they had dared celebrate my birthday on my technical birth date after promising that, for that year, my birthday fell two months earlier!
Now that I think about it, they probably only promised me that in the hopes that it would change my mind.
It's like they didn't know me at all!
I love my family and we have all made sacrifices for each other, but none of us have ever moved another's birth date. That is huge. You have a great family that is willing to bend time to make each other happy.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing the lengths people go to to calm a crying 4-year-old! But like I said, my siblings still like to grumble about it.
DeleteThis is such an adorable post! I love your child's mind attempting logic... so cute! And it's neat to hear that your parents humoured you and made it possible for you to be in the wedding at the "right" age. Children are so style!
ReplyDeleteYour bridesmaid dress is really pretty :) Sometimes I go "window shopping" online and have so much fun looking at wedding dress collections. Some of them are just beautiful.
And, by the way, I totally jumped the gun at the start of this post.
Oh, if I try to say I was a flowergirl at age 4, one of the sibs will jump down my throat: "You were FIVE! You MADE us go through all that - you can't change it now!" I don't think they've forgiven me.
DeleteYeah, and that bridesmaid dress? GORGEOUS! But I've gained weight since it was ordered. I have two months to lose it all again.
p.s. I figured you would. ;-)
DeleteYes, gorgeous! And two months should do the trick for fitting into it. Really does sound like a lot of fun.
DeleteAnd I suppose it was sort of obvious that I would ;-)
(2 months would be fine if it weren't for all the food and drink heavy good-byes. I think I will make myself the Designated Driver for my party next weekend, so that I don't drink, just pour the alcohol down everyone else's throats!)
DeletePeter Cook is awesome. The Princess Bride is awesome. Purple dress, not so awesome.
ReplyDeleteI had my 21st birthday 5 months after my real birthday. I was on a flight from Singapore to Londen on the real day, and was in my final year of uni when I got back. Had no time to celebrate until the holidays in May
July at the beach is hell-ish. Tourists everywhere, traffic jammed up, and because I work WITH these crazy people, I am almost never in a mood to "celebrate" when my birthday rolls around. Certainly, I don't want to be forced into a celebration in case it's one of "those" days.
DeleteSo we'll do something some other time and call it a birthday celebration. Or won't do anything, which is fine, too.
.....I want your dress. :c
ReplyDeletehttp://rcmdblog.blogspot.com/
LOVE that movie! And what a great scene. I think about that at every wedding and giggle. Mostly on the inside.
ReplyDeleteI love that your family moved your birthday just for your crazy 4 year old ideas. My oldest used to say when he was like 3, that he couldn't have coffee or soda until he was 5. I don't know where he got that from, but luckily he forgot about it by the time he turned 5.
I was also a flower girl at 5. My dress was yellow with huge ruffles and white polka dots. It was super classy. And the 70's. But I was adorable and don't remember crying or creating arbitrary age limitations, though.
Oh, 5 seems so grown up when you're little!
DeleteAnd yeah, this was the 70s, too. All the bridesmaids had dresses that matched mine, but they were each a different pastel shade. The ribbons around the hats matched, too. SO sharp.
And I did not cry at all...just in this picture. I think my parents milked the fact that I considered myself a BIG 5yo, and I was on *such* good behavior!
Hee, Little Red had some peculiar and cute rules!
ReplyDeleteI think your bridesmaid's dress is very pretty, and could actually be worn to a non-wedding event. Score for you, because sometimes those things really are hideous!
I've only been in one wedding, thankfully. When my dad got married to his new wife, my sister and I were his 'best girls'. So we decided to wear black dresses (hey, they matched, and they were satiny formal things, not LBDs). His wife was not super thrilled with the choice, I think she wanted us to wear something frilly and pastel. It's probably a good thing we abandoned the idea to wear tuxes.
I never resented the date change, Poseidon probably did since May was his birthday month and, naturally, Diana since the attention was on you (that's why there are never 2 happy little girls there is one with the attention and one without). All I remember from that year is that we had to take multiple pics every time because you were usually unhappy taking pictures.
ReplyDeleteSee blog world she has never wanted her picture taken
Hestia
Now I'm trying to remember who said something recently. It was Diana or Zeus, because I definitely heard a "yeah, you made us celebrate early" within the past year.
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