A Lesson About Attending Weddings

June is a big month for weddings, so I thought I would share a funny and very embarrassing story that resulted in an important lesson about going to them.

Twice in my life, I have attended weddings wearing a dress that is way too similar to the dress that the bridesmaids were wearing. It’s extremely embarrassing and I’m quite sure the bride isn’t too thrilled about it either.

Once it actually was the exact same dress. The lesson that I’m taking from the experience is that in the future I will always wear prints or separate skirt/shirt combos to weddings! But, at least now we can look back and laugh…

In the summer of 2006, our friends Jeff and Renee got married, two months before Eddie and I did, and we were all invited to eachother’s weddings. It was a big wedding year for us. Just 3 weeks before Jeff & Renee’s wedding, I had been a bridesmaid in another friend’s wedding as well. I decided to recycle the bridesmaid’s dress from that wedding and wear it to Jeff & Renee’s. That is a big mistake. NEVER do that!

I had even asked Eddie to call Jeff (because they were really his friends, they all went to college together. I went to a different school and I hadn’t spent very much time with them.) and ask him what color the bridesmaids were wearing. He did not call (that was also a BIG mistake) but told me he thought he had heard that Renee’s bridesmaids were wearing black. The dress I wanted to wear was a light pink, so I figured it would be fine.

It was so not fine.

When we arrived at the church I went to the restroom and was greeted by about half a dozen women wearing the exact same dress I was, in the exact same color. They obviously knew I was not part of their group and they looked very confused.

I darted back to Eddie and the group of fraternity brothers he was sitting with and I was livid. I really don’t think I have ever been more angry with him. (Although I realize now I should have just called Renee myself) I made him take off his suit jacket and give it to me and I sat through the entire ceremony wearing a men’s jacket.

In between the ceremony and the reception we drove off and found a mall nearby so that I could buy a new dress in a hurry. Pickings were slim since I was a size 3 at the time (what I wouldn’t give to fit into either of those dresses again!) and the Junior’s section was barren because prom season was over.

I finally found one and put it on in the dressing room, ripped off the tags, and was on the way to pay for it and wear it out of the store when I realized you could see my flower printed underwear straight through it. Eddie was on the other side of the dressing room door so I told him he was going to have to go find me a beige thong quickly. Oh, and some different shoes too. I didn’t have time to change out of the dress, into the other one, and back again and I was not about to walk around Boscov’s with this underwear situation I had going on. We were already very conspicuous walking around the mall dressed for a black tie affair, plus we were late for the reception. I waited in the dressing room, getting more and more irritated.

So then there was a man in a suit literally running through the department store, carrying high heels, in pursuit of women’s thong underwear. He said he panicked when there was a group of little old ladies in the underwear section and he told them all his wife was having an underwear emergency.

So by that point, in addition to me being the crazy screaming lady in the dressing room (because I was now even more angry) and being with the strange perverted man running through the store carrying a thong and high heels, there was a group of old ladies who thought I’d had a bathroom accident and wanted to help.

I could not pay for those clothes and get out of there fast enough!

On the plus side, Eddie did a great job picking out the shoes and I still have that pair.

We managed to get back to the reception before dinner was served and Renee never knew! I’m sure she had too much on her mind that day anyway, but she thought it was kind of funny when I told her about it earlier this year when we had them over for dinner.

Remember, ladies, as you are dressing for weddings this season: skirts and prints are your friends. Recycling bridesmaid’s dresses is a terrible idea.

The second time this happened to me it was because I re-wore the dress I had worn as a bridesmaid’s dress in my dad’s second wedding to the wedding of a friend. I figured that since it was just a regular ol’ off the rack dress this time would be fine. Um…nope. Although it was not the exact same dress, the bridesmaids that time were wearing the same color and their dresses were the same tea length as the one I had on. Ugh.

Yeah, recycling bridesmaid’s dresses? Just don’t do it.