For the love of God NO!

I received some bad news today.

My friend is getting married.

This is probably good news for her, but bad for me. I just cannot be a bridesmaid again.

For the love of God NO!

You have to understand, I'm a professional when it comes to being a bridesmaid. I have stood up in like 9 weddings. I've paid my dues, bought the ugly dresses, and hired the strippers.

Most of all, I lived through the Mother of all Bridezilla's two years ago with wedding #9, and I still suffer from Post traumatic Stress Syndrome as a result. I slightly twitch around big white dresses or anytime a group of people wear matching clothes.

It's been my experience that the older the bride is, the worse the time preceding the wedding will be, especially if it is her 1st. My friend that is getting married is 34, so it shouldn't be as bad as Bridezilla, since she was 42.

Bridezilla had dreamed of being married since she was a little girl, and had planned it out way before she was ever asked. She was finally asked at age 40, and she continued to plan for two years.

Now I didn't even have to take most of the blows, considering I wasn't in the original wedding party. We were friends before she was engaged, but not close enough that she'd ask me to stand up in her wedding. The closer the wedding got, the more horror stories I heard from her about her awful best friends and how unsupportive they were.

God I'm such a schmuck, as I signed on after two bridesmaids quit. Yes, they quit. I didn't know you could quit being a bridesmaid, but she had two, count 'em two, quit. You would think this would have been my first clue as to the hell I was about to face.

So I was drafted about 6 months before the wedding. One of the AWOL bridesmaids sent me an email that just said, "Good luck!" Curious, very curious.

It was ok for like a day. Then I had to get fitted for my dress. She was all worried about my dress not coming from the same exact material as the others. When they other dresses were made, she insisted that they all came from a continuous sheet of fabric, so they would be perfect. I heard the word perfect so many times that I can barely speak it to this day.

She wanted me to use one of the AWOL bridesmaid's dresses, but there was a problem. One of them was really big, and one was really small. You would either have to cut half the dress off from one, or expand on the other. The people at the dress shop tried to assure her that we needed to just order me another dress, as neither of the dresses would look right.

She had a freakin' fit in the middle of the shop. I stood in shock, wanting to run, but afraid she'd have a tranquilizer gun or something. It was then decided to order my dress, but keep the other two just in case it didn't match perfect.

The dress came in, and we went to look at it. It took her an hour and a half to inspect it, matching it to the other 5 dresses, to be sure it would work. I stood there like a child waiting in the dentist's office. Pure, unadulterated torture.

She finally gave it the thumbs up, and I slipped into the dress to see how it fit. She looked on in horror as it was way to big in the waist and the hips.

I have really big breasts. Sue me. This is what happens when people like me get a dress. We have to get it like 4 sizes to big, and then they cut a bunch off the waist and hips. Another temper tantrum ensued, as she was sure it wouldn't look perfect once they did all the alterations.

She then came up with the brilliant idea of maybe I could bind myself, and we could then order a smaller dress with less alterations.

Bind myself? Is this the fucking little house on the prairie days or what? I had been pushed to my limit at this point, and told her in no uncertain terms that I would not be fucking binding myself or buying another dress. If the twins presented that much of a problem, perhaps I shouldn't be in the wedding at all.

There was hope. Maybe she would kick me out now. Instead I saw the fear in her eyes, as she had experienced dissenting bridesmaids before. She immediately started crying and apologizing. Ha! While it sucked that I wasn't thrown out of the wedding party, at least I knew her weakness now.

The next four months crawled by, and I tried to side step any unnecessary conversation that might take place. Caller ID became my savior, as I would not answer if she called. Usually there was some fucked up message left by her about if the cake should be a half inch taller or not. Shit like this. It was unbearable.

She left a 911 message about how she had to see me one day, and I went to her house before work. She was making these little flower things for the shower, and she just didn't know what to do! She had two different shades of Burgundy and couldn't decide which one was more perfect.

I'm a fucking autoworker. They breed all that girl shit out of you by the time orientation is done. I honestly could not tell a difference between the two. "You're not trying!!!" she lamented.

By the time the wedding rolled around not one of us were really talking to her except for when we had to. We stood in that receiving line like soldiers who had been through a war together. It was absolutely the worst experience ever.

These are just a couple of experiences to give you just a taste of what she put us through, and I could probably write a book on the experience. There were just that many horror stories involved with it.

I swore off weddings after that. Nevah again! I haven't talked to her since when she first got back from her honeymoon. The really sad part is a good portion of her family stopped talking to her also, as the hell I went through probably didn't compare to what they went through.

So now my other friend is getting married. I'm not doing it, no I'm not. I will stand firm this time. I give a firm No! so that she doesn't ask me again.

And then I'll go out and by the ugly bridesmaid dress, and hire the strippers.