Bridal Bliss
It never fails. Every summer I go to at least 3 weddings. That's one for a friend, one for a relative, and one for a client. Sometimes more. I like to consider myself a guru in clothing faux pas. I did not achieve this higher level of enlightenment from textbook studies alone. In fact, I did not learn how to side-step fashion emergencies from my years in the business. This wealth of information gold that I’m about to share with you, my fashion friend, was purchased by yours truly with the currency of life formally called experience. And boy did I pay big time.
Picture it. It was a warm sunny day, in Walnut Creek, CA. The Rose Garden never looked so lovely. Friends and family gathered to celebrate the love of Mara and Bem. Bem was a 5’10” high achieving tech graduate from Cal. Go Bears! His friends were the colorful, impressive likeness of the cast of The Big Bang Theory. They stood waiting for the bride and her ladies to descend from the clubhouse, down the winding path to the archway of love. However, that moment would be substantially delayed due to the wardrobe malfunctions going on upstairs. Bem’s dad, an attractive, dreadlock wearing, acoustic guitar playing chic semi-hippy soothed the crowd with peaceful banter between strumming original songs he’d written, on the guitar.
Now Mara is 6’4” of statuesque fantastic-ness. Let’s just make that a word. But I digress. Anyway, after resolving the several fashion emergencies ranging from sewing extra appliques on to the bride’s dress to steaming a dress for the bridesmaid who apparently did not realize that bridesmaids look better sans wrinkles, the ladies descended. I was one of those ladies. I almost took a spill walking down the path because my high heel dipped into the moist grass. thanks to Pilates and a strong core, I was able to recover my posture just inches before hitting the ground. Thanks to a bush that seemed to be strategically placed there by God, just for this moment, few people saw me fall.
So, we made it. Mara descended. There was more guitar strumming of another original song, “The owl and the pussycat”. There were oohs and ahhs and tears. Pictures were taken toasts were made and now it’s time to party! Let’s dance! Or better yet, let everyone else dance. I could not dance, and it was not because of some swollen ankle from my near death fall down experience. I could not dance because of the spectacle that was my dress. You see, the malfunction that I did not mention earlier was the wardrobe issue that to this day requires the lovely couple to hide all wedding photos whenever Bem’s mom comes for a visit. My strapless dress did not ship on time. After many calls to the bridal company, a little cussing and a ton of prayer, my dress arrived at 9 pm the night before the wedding and it was too small…FOR MY BOOBS! Oh yea, the dress zipped just fine but somehow the cups were cut too shallow and way to short. The result was that my “girls” sat more so on top of the dress in all their puffy DDD glory instead of being tucked down inside the dress like good boobies should be. The dress barely came up enough to cover my areolas. I was raised as a church girl. I’d never shown that much skin in my life. As the maid of honor, I shouldered the stares, at the bride’s request and made a speech but there was no way I was going to dance. Instead I sipped cider and remained seated the rest of the night.
There are several provisions that could have prevented this disaster. Here are my pro tips on how to prepare for your big day to avoid major wardrobe malfunctions and years of relentless booby jokes.