My niece got married last night. Her dress, like her, was gorgeous and the groom’s ensemble was, like him, quirkily cool and handsome. No failure there. However, it was an outdoor ceremony and when I sat down the back legs of my chair sank into the soft ground. My cane prevented me from going ass over tea kettle and I recovered, poorly. Another however, one of the bridesmaids, the niece I don’t like, insisted that they all wear high heels, and the maid of honor suffered the same fate as my chair. Fail.
A cousin, who is working an Allison Janney thing, wore a flouncy, very short dress. At the daddy daughter dance, dad put his arm around her, pulling up her dress in back. Not enough to show that she wore a thing or was completely commando, but almost her complete ass was revealed. If she hadn’t been born the day after my twins, in the same hospital, and despite her not being a blood relation since Charlemagne, instead of this being a total Win, I gotta go with Fail.
At another wedding the groom’s sisters were bridesmaids. Their dresses were backless, but instead of getting appropriate bras or going braless, they wore regular bras, with the strap showing. Epic fail.
At the same wedding, for some ungodly reason, the groom invited an ex girlfriend. She wore black.
Women showing their shoulder bra straps have been common for years. But I’ve noticed in the last couple years or so, that women are beginning to show the back strap as well.
Last week, I saw a woman wearing a shirt (not a dress, but a shirt) that was practically backless. It had two things in back–(1) at the very bottom, there was a strip about 3 inches wide, and (2) there was a very small, thin string about where her bra strap would have been if she had been wearing one.
It seems that a lot of women these days don’t understand the very concept of “under” wear.
Most fashion experts would probably say it’s fine to wear black to a wedding nowadays, but my mother-in-law found out the hard way that it’s still taboo in some cultures. She wore a black dress to her son’s wedding to a Vietnamese woman, and the Vietnamese guests were giving her dirty looks all night because they consider it bad luck.
When I was about 11 or 12, I was asked to do a reading at my male cousin’s wedding, and this meant I also got to attend the reception. Back then, it wasn’t very typical to invite small children to a wedding, I so I was really excited to go to my first wedding, and get a new dress.
What I had in mind was a “cocktail dress” sort of thing, but my mother, who is very traditional and conservative, insisted on a “little girl party dress” – dropped waist, fluffy skirt, puffed sleeves, and a GIANT BOW.
At the church, I was startled to see that the mother of the bride (my cousin was the groom so I didn’t know this lady at all) was wearing the same exact dress. I was vaguely uncomfortable, because it seemed weird to me, like maybe I wasn’t wearing an appropriate dress? But looking back on it, what’s weird is that the mother of the bride, a woman old enough to have an adult daughter getting married, was wearing a little girl’s party dress to a wedding.
There is a church near my house which has a constant stream of weddings on weekends, so I see more than my share of outfits - and fails.
The biggest fail by far was one unfortunate bride and groom. He was a handsome fellow, but rather short; and his wife was also good looking, but very tall. Not an issue one would think - but their respective outfits made it an issue.
She enhanced her already considerable height by teetering along on absurdly high-heeled shoes; they must have added an extra ten inches at least.
He, in apparent retaliation, adopted what appeared to be platform shoes; but in addition, he jelled his hair up in a sort of rooster’s coxcomb effect. I have no idea of course whether this was his usual fashion, but standing side by side with his very tall and teetering wife, it made for a notably bizarre contrast: it looked like they were both competing for height (and she was winning).
The bridesmaid’s dress that wore me, at age 12, for my brother’s wedding. It was a dark purple taffeta number that checked off all the Ugly Dress stereotypes: giant poofy sleeves, giant butt bow, giant poofy skirt lined with about 9000 miles of the itchiest crinoline imaginable and a train. The bodice was crusted with beads and sequins, again sewn on with the itchiest thread imaginable. Naturally it had a sweetheart neckline meant to flash significant cleavage and wasp waist because it was 1988.
I weighed about 100 lbs after a big meal and was the same diameter from shoulders to hips because I hadn’t “developed” yet and didn’t gain much of a figure even after I did. The seamstress had to sew about 2 inches of padding into the bust so that I wouldn’t look like a broom handle in a dress, so I ended up looking like a broom handle with falsies because, from bust to waist, the thing was basically still a cylinder. There was talk of putting me in a girdle to give me a waist, but I pitched a nuclear meltdown and they gave in to shut me up.
Along with this went a hair comb festooned with giant silk flowers, feathers, and more beads. To keep it in my hair, the stylist put so much spray in that my hair had the consistency (and overall appearance) of a sea sponge. The shoes were high-heeled (I lived in sneakers at the time) satin pumps dyed to match the dress and fit my feet wrong in every concievable way.
Oh, yeah, the giant poofy sleeves were stuffed with more crinoline to maintain poofiness. The asshole photographer thought it was super funny to punch us in the sleeves to hear the crunch. The pictures, by the way, were taken at a country club where the bride’s rich bitch parents were members. Guess who got the high heels on her torture-chamber shoes stuck in the dirt.
When that day was finally over I threw the shoes in the garbage and tore the dress off my body so there was no chance of ever being forced to wear it again.
Whether to wear a Giant Ass Bow or not appears to be a huge point of contention with many brides in my area. Some will be heard spitting “I am not going to wear a fucking ass bow!”, others will have a problem along the lines of “I like it but… it’s got an ass bow!”, and yet others have been known to enter a bridal store and say “ok, I’m all for traditional stuff: what do you have with ass bows?”
My mother’s terrace overlooks the door of the second-most-popular wedding location in her town. One that always kills us is women with giant trains who apparently haven’t thought they may need someone to help carry that thing up and down the giant flight of stairs. The up trip tends not to be so bad, but the one back down has seen quite a few dangerous moments. Apparently “woman in a long train whose guests are so busy trying to congratulate her they forget the train” is its own special category within “fools and children”, as none of them has broken any bones yet.
I’m so glad I went for a simple dress and had a tiny ceremony…I still got people complaining that they hadn’t been invited. Bitch, you lucky I didn’t just elope. I seriously considered it.
I really don’t get all of the hoopla about “MUST WEAR” at a wedding. I think black is not a good idea, but if you find a really great black dress, sure. I just don’t like black dresses much in general. But all the matchy-matchy stuff is weird. “But my photos won’t look right!” How about you remember that you are surrounded by the people you love and whether their clothes match exactly doesn’t really matter?
When my cousin finally married her long time boyfriend, they decided to throw a huge wedding. Ten bridesmaids (7 of which were her sisters). Unfortunately, the bridesmaids were clad in a pastel rainbow of horrible dresses. When you have one bridesmaid who was maybe 75# and 4’9", next to another who was 6’ and over 300#, there should have been some thought to maybe letting them pick out flattering dresses. The dresses were backless, with puffy shoulder caps and long sleeves. No ass-bow, but the bottom foot or so of the skirt was festooned with rows of large fabric roses.
The littlest bridesmaid was completely swallowed up in the dress. The largest bridesmaid looked like a linebacker in drag. Two of the bridesmaids had ugly tattoos on their backs - one was a poorly done dragon, the other angel wings. Completely distracted me from watching the actual wedding.
When my sister first got hitched, I was an afterthought bridesmaid. I wish sis had gotten her way and not allowed me to be in the wedding. Sadly, my mother won AND she picked out the dress. Pastel blue (I HATE pastel blue), high collared stiff polyester-taffeta type stuff, puffy sleeves, wide sash to emphasize my non-existent waist. It was hideous. By the time I was able to shed the thing, my neck and under my chin were raw from the collar.
Can I tell a story of non-matching outfits that worked? I know, I know, it’s a hijack, but as others have said, why the emphasis on stuff that matches?
I’m not married now, but I once was. The wedding was traditional, but not large. We were both in the Army. I wore a white dress and veil, he wore his uniform, as did the best man. My sister was maid of honor, my only attendant, her dress was yellow, a variation on my own, from the same pattern. A friend in the barracks made my dress.
My father gave me away and wore a regular suit, with a yellow rose in the buttonhole. Our ushers were military friends, Army, Navy, and Air Force, so their outfits didn’t match, but had a theme at least.
I did see a wedding where the bride was lovely, but had a dress simple in style. Her sister-in-law to be didn’t like her, so dressed in an ultra-chic, fashionable outfit, with a striking hat, the only one to be wearing a hat in the church. This was at a wedding in a small Kansas town, in a small church, and one couldn’t help but notice she was trying to outshine the bride. Kind of sad.
I have three daughters and every night, as they lay in their cribs, I would whisper in their ears the single word, “Elope.”. Oldest is taking it a step further by eloping in England. Good girl!
I saw a wedding this summer with a bride who was doing her best to fit into a Jessica Rabbit sort of dress, strapless and mostly backless. Her breasts were pushed way high up, but the cups of the dress were practically just sitting there in front like little blinders for her nipples. I was sure that any sideways movement would send her spilling out the side… and the way she minced around the whole wedding (small steps, no quick movements, no bending or leaning whatsoever) makes me think she was worried about it herself. Kind of uncomfortable for everyone involved.
When my morbidly obese cousin got married, back in the '60s, she was completely covered in layers of chiffon. She looked like the Addams Family’s Cousin Itt, minus the hat and glasses, and much wider.
Not any more! After the marriage broke up my mother took all the photos from the wedding and threw them away, and I doubt my brother’s ex held onto them either.
Of course, the formal portrait of me and the junior groomsman, who I met the night before at the rehersal dinner and didn’t like at all, had somehow gotten torn to bits and flushed down the toilet years beforehand.
When my sister got married, the wedding party looked nice enough - nothing particularly hideous… except that one of the groomsmen decided that 2 days before the wedding, he’d have *elective *surgery. On his nose. Yeah.
Lovely photo of all of them lined up and doofus with a big white bandage in the middle of his face. I believe that was the end of their friendship with him.
After the marriage broke up my mother took all the photos from the wedding and threw them away, and I doubt my brother’s ex held onto them either.
