three times a bridesmaid

I live in rural America, smack in the heartland between fields and woods in northern Indiana. My sister and bride No. 3 lives in Queens, making wedding planning sometimes difficult.

This weekend I road tripped to pick her up for Christmas. The 13 hour ride home gave us plenty of wedding planning time, but made me think about how the distance has impacted my bridesmaid experience.

With my previous brides, I lived in the same city while they were planning and would stop over just to look over magazines and their latest finds.

I feel a little guilty about not being there every step of the way. However, Kim loves to plan. Actually, love isn’t strong enough, it’s her lifestyle.

What I’ve taken away from this go around is to step up as needed. My poor planning skills would drive my sister crazy. While, Erin, my second bride, shares my lack of planning and benefited from my “It will come together attitiude” about things.

I am going to really get moving on the bridal shower over the next few weeks after Kim nails down a date. Watch for posts about my efforts.

And, of course, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

A little experiment. I want your stories about a horrible bridesmaid. I feel like I’m writing a promo for the Maury show.

Did you attend a wedding and witness a bridesmaid do something really embarrasing?

Were you a bride who lived through a flaky bridesmaid?

I love all of the comments I’ve received over the past two months and during the busy holiday season when I’ve noticed the comments drop off, thought I’d take a moment to show my appreciation.

So, take a moment to stop wrapping presents, shopping for presents, and share your worst bridesmaid experience.

And, admitedly, in the dead of winter with wedding season months away, I’m running short on post ideas. I want to use your stories to create a future series of posts about how to not be a good bridesmaid.

As I mentioned, I’ve been sick, meaning I’ve been slacking posting, and am way overdue for my latest ugly bridesmaids dress of the day. But, it’s a good one!

Anyone play with a slinky as a child? That’s what this reminds me of, fabric draped over a slinky. I seriously wouldn’t stand next to the bride if I were that bridesmaid for fear of punching her! The bride’s dress looks reasonably classy and tasteful, so she must have been really afraid of her bridesmaids looking better than her on the big day.

Anyone want to share their ugly moment? It’s good therapy! Send an email to threetimesabridesmaid (at) gmail (dot) com if interested.

I’ve been sick over the past few days and yesterday took a day off (I know, I work from home and couldn’t even make the uber short commute). Several of your comments have brought up the movie 27 Dresses staring Katherine Heigl, so I decided to spend couch time doing a little blog research.

I don’t like romantic comedies so this was truly for the sake of this blog. Maybe that jaded me on the film, but overall, hated it. Total waste of time. In fact, I decided to not waste anymore time on a proper review, which the film doesn’t even deserve.

Katherine Heigl stars as Jane, a woman whose been a bridesmaid 27 times. Her sis comes to town and gets engaged to the man she loves and in the end everyone lives happily ever after. Typical subpar romantic comedy stuff.

The movie was especially unrealistic. Jane eventually gets wrapped up with a newspaper reporter, and as an ex-reporter, I cringe at movie dipictions of reporters, this one lived up to the bill.

But, all is not lost. There were plenty of ugly bridesmaids dresses included. And, I did like the line Jane hears from her brides several times, “You can shorten it and wear it again.” Here are some of my favorites:

I previously posted that bride no. 3, my sister Kim, rethought the black bridesmaids dresses idea. She’s thinking something like the sage green color above. The picture isn’t great, and makes the color look a little too shiny, so this is just for a general idea. I like it and am becoming used to the idea of not having a black dress.

A comment from Daisy Bookworm also made me push less for black dresses. Daisy pointed out that in 20 years, the whole black bridesmaids dress trend right now might be looked at as a “why’d we do that?” moment. Or maybe the little black bridesmaids dress will be as classic as the little black dress. Only time will tell.

Were your bridesmaids dresses trendy? Is there any way to avoid a “what was I think moment” with the test of time