Making Things

I helped make a wedding yesterday. And it was amazing.

A while ago - I can't remember exactly when; sometime in the late spring or so - a dear friend did me the honor of asking me to be an attendant at her wedding. I love both her and her fiance, and I love weddings, and I was glad beyond words to be asked to share in this event, so of course I said yes.

A little while later - somewhere around July - she and her fiance asked me to help pitch in with the wedding planning. I have a small handful of obscure but occasionally useful superpowers, and one of them is Getting Stuff Done. Also, being married, I've ridden this rodeo before. And I know that the process of planning a wedding can be a big, frazzling, intimidating mess. And I like being helpful.

So I've spent a chunk of the last few months pitching in where I can. Calling photographers and videographers, coordinating with the DJ and the venue and with the wedding party and the hairdresser, talking through timelines and helping make lists, and most of all reminding two people that I care about very much that this whole thing was ultimately supposed to be a positive experience, and that the most important part wasn't the table linens or the positioning of the favors, but their love for each other and their community's love for them.

And yesterday this all came together in one big colorful vibrant creative sparkly fairy tale full of masks and flowers and dancing and family and love, and I am so incredibly happy and proud and grateful to have been part of making it happen.

Weddings are wonderful. Love is wonderful. My friends are amazing.

But Not A Real Green Dress, That's Cruel

One of the things that being in a wedding party entailed was finding something wedding-appropriate to wear. I hadn't realized just how much of a challenge this would be.

For this wedding, the brides decided that, rather than pick out one single dress for all the dress-wearing attendants to wear (considering our range of sizes and shapes, that would have been a nightmare), they were just going to pick a color and have us all find something that we liked. And, wanting to go along with a fairy-tale/foresty theme, they asked us to wear something green.

Did you know there are "in" colors each season?

Did you know that green isn't "in" this season?

Neither did I. The perils of being fashion-unconscious. (I think I fall perilously close to fashion-comatose.) Anyway, after hunting through Macy's, Lord & Taylors, Nordstrom, and every other dress shop I could find, I had found one bad seafoam prom dress and a ton of nope.

So I went online. Where I found maybe half a dozen dresses, divided evenly between 'incredibly casual sundress' and 'way too sexy,' neither of which felt quite right for a semi-formal wedding, especially standing up next to the brides.

Green is hard, yo.

Thankfully, my friends are open-minded and willing to embrace non-traditionally-Western attire. And I live about a mile or so from an Indian Bridal shop.

I cannot say enough good things about Chhabra Bridal. The people there are incredibly helpful and friendly and cooperative; they understood that I was looking for something to wear for a Western wedding, and within five minutes of stepping in the door they had more beautiful green sarees and lehengas and salwar kameez laid out for me. (If you are ever looking for colorful clothing? This is the place to go. It was like shopping inside a rainbow.)

And oh my god, everything in there was beautiful. And they custom-tailor the clothes, and will walk you through wrapping and draping until you've got it down just right, and I wish I had an excuse to shop there every day. As it is, I need to manufacture reasons to dress like this more often....

( pictures of the Best Bridesmaid Dress ever, hidden for those who don't care.... )