If the turn of the millennium was the era of the bridal movie — “The Wedding Planner,” “Runaway Bride,” “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” — the late oughts may mark the beginning of the day of the bridesmaid. Katherine Heigl starts the trend with “27 Dresses” — and any once and future bridesmaid worth her dyed pumps is keenly aware of the sigh of exasperation present in the title.
If you haven’t been in quite that many weddings, you probably at least feel as though you have. It’s the popularity contest of Generation X; how many bridesmaids will you have, and just how many shades of unwearable pink taffeta are currently in your closet?
Last year, with my foot at last in the bridal slipper, I tried a different approach: Total honesty. “You will never wear this again,” I announced as I called the bridesmaids for their measurements.
No, but they now have custom-made Halloween costumes they may don without irony. I’d spun 180 degrees against the strapless dress trend and launched a Renaissance wedding — complete with sleeves.
When my mother was married, she threw the wedding together in three months, and was largely able to do so because her attendants trotted off to a fabric store in a well-coifed pack, then made their own dresses. That’s a potential catastrophe in 2008. Imagine any modern family wedding-related ritual. Now add ready accessibility to a steaming hot iron and an array of extremely sharp scissors. There are few of us who can do more than hold up a scrunchy we slapped together in home economics back when Sinbad was on the A-list.
Splendid is our ability to lay down the needle and frying pan in favor of a fighter jet cockpit or legal brief, but perhaps the price is an entire generation largely uneducated where clothing construction is concerned. There’s no reason why a woman (or man, if you please) can’t be fully liberated and still sling a mean seam ripper.
Prepare to surrender your credit cardInstead, we have liberated ourselves right into credit card debt at David’s Bridal every time a sorority sister slips on a new carat or five. The average cost of a single bridesmaid dress, according to Conde Nast Bridal Media, is $138. An alarming amount ring in at well over $300. That’s pre-alterations. And shoes. And jewelry. And bridal showers. And hair. And liquor to withstand the dress, alterations, shoes, jewelry, bridal showers and hair.
At the mercy of the wedding industry, scores of women pay and pay ... and pay for salon hem jobs which take weeks, painful bust spillage, and rolls of back fat on an otherwise size 8. Brides now gaze upon a list of potential attendants with a critical pregnancy-watch eye; a poor fit is a nightmare, but an unexpectedly expanding matron of honor is nothing short of total bridal party Armageddon.
Why do we do this to our closest friends, our dearest family members? Given the hurricane of hurt feelings, in-law wars, and Valium popping that wedding planning tends to create, you’ll never believe the original purpose of the bridesmaid: By dressing similarly, she and her bridal party sisters were to confuse and deflect evil spirits away from the marrying couple. That was when Rome ruled the world.
In 2008? There’s a Yahoo! Answers feature entitled, “Can I Be Sued By an Ex-Bridesmaid for Payment of Bridesmaid Dress?”
Somewhere along the line, a bridesmaid became a bouncer, a procurer of spirits and strippers, a psychotherapist and, apparently, an endless source of unpaid labor.
All for one ... and all for oneIt seems that the rise of bridesmaid abuse began when the same generation that sailed through life collecting participation trophies and “I Am Me!” awards began to migrate from the mall arcade to the wedding chapel. Gently informed all our lives that we are special, wonderful, glorious creations, we, of course, began to expect special, wonderful, glorious wedding days.
The wedding industry bombards prospective brides with slick images of flawless table settings and red carpet-worthy groomsmen who never instigate anything beyond a conga line. And who fluffs each individual ribbon on that just-right table favor? The bridesmaid. The bride is too busy consulting on the bank loan she took to finance the tapestries on the buffet table, which were hand woven by Peruvian nuns in her bridal colors and quite necessary for her very special day. And many a bridesmaid, thus misused, takes her own pound of Clinique-caked flesh when her turn comes.
The trick, it seems, is to repay with love rather than demands for a bachelorette party in Milan. I once found myself standing in full bridesmaid regalia, tracing a map of Scotland for my best friend’s reception place cards — Scotland, by the way, is really, really bumpy. And she turned right around and calmly force-fed me a turkey sandwich on my own wedding day when I violently balked at anything not containing enormous amounts of alcohol.
There’s no denying that power bridesmaiding is an art; my own matron of honor, watching me crumple to the floor when I found a millimeter of dirt on the bodice of my gown, said, “Don’t worry. I have mom spit.” She spat; the spot vanished. A bridal salon would have charged me $47.50 for a plastic spray bottle of Miracle Bridal Bodice Refresher.
It might not make a very good movie, but it made for a very terrific bridesmaid.
Former bridesmaid Mary Beth Ellis is the author of “Drink to the Lasses” and runs BlondeChampagne.com from the Washington D.C. area.