This story is just too good to keep to myself.
“What was she thinking?” I yelped on my wedding day as I looked across the hotel plaza on the way to my ceremony and stopped dead in my tracks.
“Down girl,” said my oldest friend who immediately and firmly grasped my arm and led me away from the potential scene she feIt sure I was about to cause.
It is now several years since that shocking moment but what caused it has now become an international news item.
Ellie Pithers writes in the London Telegraph that “Three in five women would “happily wear white to a wedding,” according to a new study done by ASDA, a clothing conglomerate in the UK.
Clearly, my wedding guest was ahead of the curve.
“I don’t think she knew it was wrong,” several people said to me. And they were probably correct. Traditionally, the only person to wear white at a wedding is the star of the show. The bride. That’s so if the veil and tiara didn’t give away the identity of the female alpha dog then the big white dress would surely remove any remaining doubt.
But things are changing…a bit. Pippa wore white when her sister Kate got hitched to the Prince. And the model Kate Moss clad her bridesmaids in white as well…The whole baker’s dozen.
Well, good for them. But I think I can say with absolute certainty that neither Kate would have fancied the dress MY guest wore.
You can see it in my wedding album. There’s my family. My husband’s too. And then there’s us. The two brides. A picture of polygamy. Okay. Not two brides, exactly. But two women who looked very much alike. Yes. Really. That’s what she wore. that day A real wedding gown.
“I got it at a second hand shop,” she reportedly squealed to someone in attendance. Well, shouldn’t that have been a big fat “heads up” then? The original owner had no more use for it so instead of storing it for a century in a closet she paid it forward for another bride to enjoy. That’s “bride” not “guest.”
To make matters worse, I think I remember her escort, a family member who shall remain nameless, actually saying to me at some point, “doesn’t #+%& looked great,?” “No,” I wanted to scream. “And how don’t YOU know how really wrong all of this is,” I yearned to add.
In fact, she did look really good in her, albeit, inappropriate, ensemble. But that is not the point now is it?
Several years passed. I held my tongue. Then one day I learned that the wanna-be-bride was no longer in the picture. I couldn’t get to the phone fast enough. “ So, what was up with the wedding dress.?” I said to my, not-to-be mentioned relation. He was clueless and apologetic as he had heard about the traditional ban on white at weddings, but didn’t know it at the time of mine. And why would he have known. His darling idea of formality stops at flip flops. Most men, I suspect, would be the same.
But I think for future reference, any woman worrying about what to wear to a wedding should play it safe by avoiding white and leaving the bridal gown to the bride.
