Being a Bridesmaid - Part 1: The Dress

Before being asked to be a bridesmaid it was a role I had given little thought.  About the only thing I knew I’d have to do was wear a dress that was chosen by committee and not by myself.  As I am a vain fool, this was a big deal to me.  Normally I attempt to be the only person wearing my style, colour and cut of dress.  As a bridesmaid (unless you are solo) you are going to be wearing the exact same thing as someone else.  It’s a gut wrenching thought.

These are the cold hard facts of buying a bridesmaid’s dress...

A LOT of people will see you in your underwear

This was the biggest shock to me.  I’m no prude but I’m also not an exhibitionist.  People who need to (and most importantly, want to) see me in the nip are welcomed with no blushes or mock shyness.  However I’ve never been able to change in the open of a gym locker room without being sure that everyone else is staring at my little belly and thinking ‘fat cow’.

So imagine my horror when I discovered trying on bridesmaid dresses involved numerous middle-aged women seeing me in my sensible pants and bra.  Most bridal shops only stock one of each dress style in only one colour option so the dresses you try on are in sizes that most people will be able to fit into (smaller people are pinned in, larger people might not be able to do the zipper up).  The result of this is that a woman comes into the changing room with you, helps you into the dress and then secures you in it. 

After a while you start to get used to someone watching you dress and assisting, it feels sort of like having a lady servant which is pleasing for a short spell.  In overcoming my fear of a strangers seeing me in my pants I felt liberated, it made me feel in touch with my European easygoing side.  It wasn’t a sensation that lasted.

You will wear satin (or some other material you would choose to avoid for day-to-day living)

Problems with satin: it’s very unforgiving, it creases as soon as you sit, it can feel both too light or too heavy with the slightest change in temperature.  The truth is the majority of traditional bridesmaid dresses come in satin, it’s a horror you will have to live with. 

To minimise the paunch that the satin will inevitably make you look like you have, invest in some good seamless sucky-in knickers.  Even if you don’t need your belly held flat in normal outfits you will for this one.  Also aim to have zero VPL.  Pippa Middleton proved you can shine in a bridesmaid’s dress as long your arse looks good, follow her posh pert lead.

You will have to fight to maintain your own identity

Being a bridesmaid is an odd thing, for a day one of your best friends dictates things about your appearance that, should she attempt at any other time, you’d tell her to bugger off.  But because it’s her special day you don’t say anything out loud about the colour scheme or the satin because if that’s what she wants then you are more than happy to oblige.

As well as the bride, there are also the other bridesmaids to consider.  You have to work as a team, decide what is most important to you all about what you wear and push for that as one unit.  It’s remarkably different to any clothes shopping you will do again where your priority is to wear something that feels entirely ‘you’.

You will be wearing something that looks decent on all of you rather than the dress that looked AMAZING on you but not so good on the others but you are still you.  Refuse any suggestions that you should; all have the same hairstyle, same skin tone (it was briefly mentioned I was ‘too pale’ compared to others!), wear shoes of differing heels to be the exact same height,  have identical make-up.  You will only be a bridesmaid one or two days of your life, do not allow what you are for the rest of them to be forgotten.

The actual day that you shop, although testing at times, is best dealt with if you approach it as your moment to create a montage of you trying on different prom dresses ala a cheesy 90s teen movie.

That’s the dress covered.  Posts about the hen and the big day itself to follow soon.

Us and Them

This blog post has spent several days in my head, numerous times the tips of my fingers have hovered over a keyboard ready to write but I’ve never got past the first few lines due to my increasingly sore head.  Like a sickly heroine from an Austen novel I'm prone to feeling lightheaded and faint from being in ‘the wrong sort’ of light.  This is always worst when it’s gloomy outside and we have to use the dodgy overhead lights found in all offices that somehow bounce pain straight into the back of my brain.  Anyway, this is finally me committing words to screen – hurrah!

So what pertinent, amazing thoughts have I been thinking during those lost days?  Mainly they have been about doing up my new flat and my imminent bridesmaid duties.  Amongst all that, I also had a conversation about the differences between the Scottish and the English sparked by Andy Murray and the incredibly boring 'is he British or Scottish' debate.  He is of course both so let’s all stop having that conversation and making ‘Come on Tim’ comments too while we're at it, it’s incredibly tedious.

I’m Scottish and have lived down south for almost four years (a year and a bit in Norwich of all places and the rest in London town) and before I moved I never ever thought about my cultural identity.  Since I’ve been here it’s something I have to talk about more often that I’d like.  Obviously there are differences, my accent, words I say that I don’t realise - until uttering and seeing confused reactions - are colloquial, food I crave but somehow hasn’t found its way into the English diet.  But there are only three truly fundamental differences between us and them, well, as far as I can tell anyway.

1. Talking about the weather

In Scotland it rains A LOT, it's cold A LOT and when there is no rain the sky is still an ominous shade of grey.  So, on days where the sun shines and it is above 15°C we rejoice at our good fortune.  In England people seem to be in a permanent state of confusion as to why it is not a tropical paradise.  Unless it is beautifully sunny I am subjected to several conversations a day about why the weather is so bad.  It’s not bad, weather cannot be categorised as ‘bad’ until your house is flooded or you’re snowed in. When that happens, let's have that chat.

2.  Zebra crossings

The rules of the road are that when a pedestrian walks on a zebra crossing cars MUST stop.  In Scotland this seems to be understood and people walk onto the road and expect the people in the cars to know what to do.  In England this rule seems to not be taught to anyone.  I walk past two zebra crossings on my way to work and every day see people dithering at the side of the road waiting for the traffic to stop.  Hint, it will not stop until you step on the bloody road.

3. Puns

I like to pride myself on being fairly amusing and being able to find comedy in most things.  There is only one form of humour that I do not understand – puns.  The English LOVE a pun.  Up until moving I think I heard a pun-based joke as rarely as I saw sunshine.  Now I hear them regularly and am unable to respond because I just don’t get it.

Now, I’m no anthropologist so this is just my anecdotal musings.  However, I’m pretty sure that if David Cameron worked on the three things above then there’d be no independence debate and we'd be one big happy family.