Day 3.

Wedding day! I felt like *I* was getting married that day. I was nervous and anxious the entire day. My friends and I woke up and hung out at the hotel for a while until it was time to get ready. I started the process around 2.5 hours before we had to leave – and guess what – we still almost didn’t make it to the shuttle on time.

I was putting on my eyeshadow by very slowly dragging it across my eyelid and then pausing to admire the effect like a proud show pony. Normally I’m very haphazard with my makeup because I don’t have the time or patience to make myself into some sort of sparkly princess on the daily. Anyway, back to the make up process. It was slow. Layer by layer I attempted to re-create what nature had not given me – symmetry and interesting features. With a little help from well-placed (mmm debatable) color and lines, I produced some sort of semi-attractive look and gave myself a pat on the back.

When it came down to getting on the dress, things went downhill fast. The zipper would NOT go up. I stood around half-dressed while my friends tried to fix the broken zipper. I was worried that I was going to wear a trash bag or various wrappers from the gluten free snacks I had consumed earlier on in the day. Not fitting into your dress despite four people tugging and pulling on you and your garment does not make you feel good about yourself.  I briefly felt like Miss Piggy of the Muppets in that hotel room. My friends told me that it was the zipper and not me that caused such a chaotic dress process which made me feel slightly better. Luckily, they were able to get the zipper fixed enough to get it to zip up and I wore the heck out of that dress – if I do say so myself. I never plan on wearing it again.

How I felt.

Thank you to my sister who went into my digital sketchbook and added this pleasant surprise after apparently seeing the Miss Piggy drawing.

When we arrived at the wedding venue, I started to feel extremely anxious and nervous again.  In part, I was nervous because I was about to witness my friend get married at the ripe old age of 22. It made me think about my life decisions and how much all of my friends and I have grown up. It also inspired a set of panicky questions I asked myself internally. Wasn’t this kind of thing supposed to happen at some undetermined point in the future? Isn’t growing up supposed to be a gradual process and not this wham-bam-thank-you-m’am series of events it has turned out to be? AM I SUPPOSED TO BE MARRIED RIGHT NOW? BECAUSE – LOL – NO. 

As soon as I sat down for the ceremony, my eyes took this as a cue to fill up with water and I was on the verge on starting some serious waterworks rivaling the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas. I had to give myself a pep talk in order to not cry:

Michelle, you spent over two hours putting on makeup. Crying right now? Seriously? Do you even realize how much eyeliner and mascara you’re wearing right now? Things are going to get reeeal messy and unflattering if you add water to all that black liquid eyeliner. I know you want to cry but you are only allowed to tear up. Those tears SHALL NOT PASS from the outer confines of your eye. 

While I did tear up, I avoided crying all over myself. And let’s be real, if I cried as much as I wanted to, people would just shake their heads and judge me and think to themselves: Poor girl, she only has her cats, that’s why she’s crying so much.

Because this was a high school friend’s wedding, there were quite a few friends from high school present at the wedding. I don’t know if you guys enjoy keeping in touch with everybody you’ve ever met in your life, but I do not. Some of my high school friends, I realized after some reflection, are just not people I want in my life for various reasons. So, naturally, I deleted them off Facebook. Now, it’s not like these people and I were besties from the start so I thought they wouldn’t notice or care. If I had known the bitterness and acrid comments I received at the wedding from former friends, I probably would have thought harder about de-friending people. (JUST KIDDING, NO REGRETS.)

Upon seeing one “friend”:

This was my reaction:

In my head, I went to my Manners Book voice and said to myself: This is not the time nor the place, Michelle. Be a classy woman. And then I smiled and moved on to greet the next person.

I felt a little weirded out and slightly annoyed by my interaction with some of these people but luckily, there was champagne inside and I helped myself to a glass.

After I had finished the champagne, a waiter came to our table and left two full bottles of wine. Well, isn’t that convenient. I poured myself another glass.

After imbibing and eating, all of the guests were invited downstairs to the dance floor. There, the father-daughter and mother-son dances set me on the path to tears again. But, even with wine in my system, I managed to keep it together.

Then, the bouquet toss happened. I tried to position myself in a place where I thought the bouquet wouldn’t go. Of course, it came straight at me and I sidestepped to avoid it. This is what happened:

After successfully avoiding the bouquet, my friends and I got down with our bad selves on the dance floor. Nothing can convince you to dance more than the suggestive power of alcohol.

– Daughter