Sounds great, I replied. Just let me know what time to be there on Saturday! —L.
Her reply pinged back less than thirty seconds later. Please ‘reply all’ in the future. It’s so much easier if everyone knows the plan!
My inbox dinged again. I’m in, a girl named Dana replied. I can go all three Saturdays! Yay! I can’t wait! I’m so excited for you! What style of dress do you think you want? I love the mermaid ones, but you could pull off absolutely anything and look stunning! Do you have a Pinterest board for dresses yet?
What’s up with this Pinterest thing? I wondered. I thought it was for recipes. Should I be on there?
An email came in from a Deanna as I was typing Pinterest into a search engine.
Wahhhh! The nanny is off this Saturday and it’s too late to switch her days. I wish I could go! I agree with Dana, I love the mermaid dresses! You’ve got the perfect body for one of those! Promise me you’ll send me pictures of every single dress you try on! I just looked at your Pinterest board and, oh my God, you’re going to be the most beautiful bride! I love every dress you’ve pinned! Every other bride in the world will be “Greene” with envy! I can’t wait to see the dresses!
Love,
Deanna
I’ll be there! the next email began. It arrived before I even finished reading Deanna’s. I’m all yours until the wedding! Is Mom coming too? What about Grandma? Or is it just the bridesmaids? I love how organized you are! See you Saturday, sis! Love, Olivia.
Do these girls not work? I went to Pinterest and created an account, but didn’t quite get what it was supposed to be. I would have to ask Megan. I also needed to mute my computer because the bridesmaids were starting to reply to each other’s emails and the thread was giving me anxiety about how much I didn’t know. What was a Kleinfeld? Why was Mia “the queen of bustling,” as Deanna called her, and what did that even mean? I pictured a Victorian-style bustle, but Caryn was pretty self-conscious about her butt. She wasn’t going to do anything to make it look bigger.
I grabbed my phone and texted Megan. Am I supposed to know anything about wedding dresses?
No, she replied. You get a manual on them for free with your engagement ring.
Come on, Megs.
You just get bridal magazines and learn about it that way, or you can watch Say Yes to the Dress.
What’s that?
Megan sent me three eye-roll emojis, then a link to the show on TLC’s website. I clicked the link and felt my eyes widen as the show began to play on my phone. There was a whole world of this stuff that I knew nothing about, apparently. My only exposure to reality TV had been Becca’s obsessive watching of the Real Housewives and the Kardashians, and that was enough to turn me off of it all.
As soon as I realized Kleinfeld Bridal was the shop where the show took place, I turned it off.
I could wing this. As Caryn’s sister pointed out in her email, Caryn was organized. She had to be to keep the foundation running. And her type A behavior made my life far more functional at work. Dress shopping would clearly be an in-and-out operation. The other two weekends probably wouldn’t even be necessary. I just needed to ooh and aah when she put on the perfect dress and sip champagne for an afternoon. I could do that.
I ran a quick Google search of “mermaid-style wedding dresses,” wondering at the intentions of the friends who had asked about them. There was only one part of her body that Caryn was self-conscious about, and it was her butt. There was no way she would wear something designed to show that off on her wedding day. No wonder she wanted me there with her. I wouldn’t let them pressure her into anything she didn’t like. No way, no how.
The line at Starbucks had been atrocious, and I admittedly left late because I wasn’t sure what one wore to a bridal salon. But armed with my venti iced latte, a pair of heels with skinny black pants, and a sleeveless top, I was ready for a fun, if somewhat more glamorous than I was used to, Saturday morning. I went up the escalator to the bridal suite and was ushered into a marble-tiled room in soothing neutral shades of beige that allowed the fluffy, white dresses that lined the walls to pop. Four petite, blonde women, all looking like they were from the same cookie-cutter, country-club brunch, sat sipping champagne and cooing emphatically over Caryn, who stood on a pedestal in front of a triple-view mirror in a Cinderella-style white ball gown.
And then there was me, melting into a sweaty, brunette puddle from the heat of the parking lot, dressed in black without even a hint of anything pastel or floral to make it look like I belonged to their group.