My best friends wedding - NVQ
Part 3…An NVQ In Bridesmaiding is not a bad idea:
Brides like pregnant ladies can get weepy. If the brides are pregnant they are even weepier. Let’s face it there’s lots to get weepy about.
For some girls – their wedding day is the day they have been fantasising about since they were two. You know the sort, the ones that always drew wedding dresses in their exercise books at school. But hey, whether it’s been a slow burn for 30 years, or a whirlwind ignition, weddings are emotional. It’s one of those events in your life that can bring up all that subtext in your relationships. That’s why organising a wedding can be really stressful. You just can’t hide the truth!
Being a chief deflector (CD) is no mean feat. Obviously your duties are as light or as heavy as your relationship to the bride, her relationship to her family and the type of wedding that she is planning to have.
Marina and I have been friends and rivals forever.
I was there when the casual boyfriends and the nearly-made-it over-the-finish-line-serious boyfriend came and went. Marina and I have revised, got first jobs, decorated flats and been on diets together. We’ve shared wardrobes, holidays, faked each other’s CVs, wailed, cried and laughed together. Although Phil is what you would call an A list kind of guy, he just can’t do that post-mortem forensic, obsessive detail that girls can be really good at.
Despite bouts of jealousy, Marina is my best friend in the world, being a CD has given me a sort of purpose and I intend to do it as well as I can. It’s also my way of making sure I won’t feel left out….
Check list – What’s expected on me?
Sitting down with Phil and Marina in the local curry house on the night they announced their nuptials and asked me to be CD, I was treated to the whole wedding vision in glorious chocolate and pink technicolour.
Marina’s so-called alternative streak is surprisingly no-where to be seen. Phil and Marina have opted for traditional all the way with a chocolate and pink twist.
Being some kind of auditor-person, I was not surprised by the emergence of Phil’s transparent clipboard with my duties and the running order of what the couple have envisaged for their party of parties. Phil handed me over a print-out (!) of my duties.
• Helping the bride in all things including choosing her dress. M’s mum to get involved also, but given that she never has an opinion about anything, Marina wants me there to do the honest ‘does my bum look big in this?’ debrief.
• Help to choose the style of bridesmaid dresses. The colour (sadly) is set but the actual dress styles need work. This is good as it can work very much in my favour.
• I learn from Phil that I’m paying for my own frock and shoes, apparently it’s the done thing. Yippee!! I have to pay to wear chocolate and pink but the question is, can I cleverly create a style that I would actually want to wear again? Don’t know. But I can cunningly orchestrate some distance between me and the other basketful of cute bridesmaids.
• Help Marina and mother to choose and specify flowers.
• Help to decorate church.
• Help with writing and sending of invitations.
• Throw a bridal shower!!! (Has this woman been watching American TV for too long?)
• Help with rehearsal and pre wedding dinner.
• Arrange hen weekend (Great this wedding is getting nice and expensive).
• Help with hair & beauty dummy runs.
• Be there on the day, ready with spare bits n pieces.
• Help Best Man on day with collection of presents and anything else.
• In the interests of girl power - make a speech!
• In general where I’m not planning, orchestrating, being dumped upon, listening, soothing, choosing and nodding sympathetically, I must be a home help, church help, reception help, helper, helping, a heffer of a helper. Help!
- Spread the word:
- delicious
- digg
- technorati
- magnolia
- stumbleupon
- yahoo