She sat down on the sofa and pulled a crouton off my salad, then made a face when it didn’t crunch. “I mean, I would. What would you blog about?”
“Me. The weddings. My life. All of it, I guess.”
“Megan would go ballistic.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Not if it was anonymous and I hid everyone’s identities well.”
“Why write one if it’s going to be anonymous?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to admit to the overdraft from my now unappealing-looking salad. “I—I need to make some money. These weddings are expensive. And—well—I kind of need a place to vent without losing all of my friends.” I hadn’t realized that last part was true until I said it, but it definitely was.
“You have me.”
“I know. But you’re not paying me to complain about people.”
She laughed. “They have people on talk shows all the time who make a living blogging. And you’re funny. You’d be good at it.” She stood up and stretched. “I’m gonna go change. You wanna watch something?”
I glanced up at the muted TV. I hadn’t shut off my show and had let it run for the last couple hours. “No. I think I’m going to try to flesh this out.”
She shrugged. “Okay. I can watch in my room.”
I told her not to be silly, that I’d go work in mine, then tossed my salad, grabbed a protein bar, and camped out cross-legged on my bed with my laptop. I went to wordpress.com and created an account. Blog title? it prompted.
I thought for a minute, then started typing.
Bridesmania.
And I began to write.
Always the bridesmaid, but glad I’m not the bride?
Welcome to the blog! I’m not quite sure where to start, so I’m just going to dive right in. I’m a bridesmaid in five weddings this coming summer, all taking place within the same two months.
If it sounds like the plot of that ridiculous Katherine Heigl movie, let me stop you right there because I don’t have twenty-seven friends close enough to want me in their weddings. （Does anyone? That might have been the least realistic part.） Nor am I going to fall in love with a supersexy wedding columnist who looks like James Marsden. （Okay, if James Marsden is reading this, yes, I’m single, ready, and have five weddings that I could use a date to . . . just saying. Although I don’t think I’m allowed to bring a date to any of them, but that’s a post for another day.） On the contrary.
No. I have one best friend, two close friends who want me in their weddings to help deflect from horrible friends and family members, and two younger siblings who apparently don’t agree with the Victorian concept that the elder sibling should be married before the younger.
I can’t use their names because if my identity is revealed, I not only won’t be in any weddings, I won’t have any friends left. And despite the fact that I’m being snarky about them on the internet right now, I actually do love my friends.
So I’ll refer to them by letters.
Bride A asked me to be in her wedding first. She’s my work bestie and I adore her. Her other bridesmaids, however? I don’t think they’re human. And if they’re cyborgs, or Stepford people, they’re definitely the evil kind. But in such a NICE way. One of them offered to send me a juice cleanse to help me lose weight before the wedding. Isn’t she sweet? She’s also Bride A’s future sister-in-law, so I can’t be rude back in person or Bride A will suffer for it. The saddest part is that Bride A told me she doesn’t even like her bridesmaids, which is pretty much the saddest thing ever. So I’ll play along and behave for her sake.
Bride B is lovely but has Mom-zilla （Mommy Kruger? I’m not entirely sure how naming wedding party members after horror movie icons works.） and basically asked me to be in the wedding that Mom-zilla is forcing her to have because God forbid her daughter actually have a say in her own wedding. I know I’m mixing my movie monster metaphors, but I’m going to need a bigger boat.
Bride C is like Mary Poppins—practically perfect in every way—except I hooked up with a groomsman in her wedding and I don’t know which one it was. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you. I blacked out drunk and then snuck out of the room the next morning while he was asleep facing the wall. But I made the super-mature decision to not let Bride C tell me who the mystery man is because I can’t be awkward around him if I don’t know who he is.
Bride D is my brother’s fiancée. At the risk of sounding like Mariah Carey, I don’t know her. I’d like to. I think. But she’s like twelve and basically never speaks. And I might have thought he was kidding when he told me he was engaged and made a snarky comment. While I was on speakerphone. With her. Oops. （However, in the grand scheme of Bride C and all, it wasn’t THAT big of a faux pas.） Bride E is my baby sister. She’s eight years younger than me, still lives with my parents, and is walking around with her fiancé’s grandmother’s Tiffany diamond ring. She’s twenty-four and has never held a full-time job or paid rent. Granted, there’s a pretty close to zero percent chance she actually gets married, but come on. This whole situation has to be a giant troll designed to ruin my self-esteem. No one falls ass-backward into things that easily in real life, do they?