Why 27 Dresses would take top billing in a movie montage of my life

Sometimes I feel like my life is a movie montage, just without any hot male actors. It’s a bit Bridget Jones (single girl with a serious case of foot-in-mouth-disease), a bit Dirty Dancing (total lack of coordination and a tendency to be a goody-two-shoes), a bit Rocky (you can really work up a sweat in yoga you know), a bit Working Girl (just not that kind of working girl) and a bit Home Alone (Mum and Dad are currently communing with nature somewhere in Kenya).

There is one movie in particular, however, that would really have to take top billing in a movie montage of my life. 27 Dresses*. And not because Katherine Heigel and I share nearly-the-same name, and are both tall, blonde, and love reading the wedding section of the weekend papers. And not because it includes a reference to electric boobs, which sound quite fascinating actually. But because it’s about being a bridesmaid. And that is one thing I know a thing or two about.

No wetsuits or theme weddings in my collection!

My bridesmaid career started nearly ten years ago with Dress #1 for Sal (pink strapless) and will end sometime next year with Dress #7 for Cassie (dress and date unknown but if I don’t get Cass to commit to a date soon her mother might just kill me).  After that, I’m hanging up my curling tongs - no more bridesmaid duties for me. Not because I don’t love being a bridesmaid, but because I think once you hit your mid-thirties you start getting too old to be seen in public wearing the same dress as someone else. Well, knowingly at least.

I don’t know why I’ve been asked to be a bridesmaid seven times. Having two sisters has something to do with it, but I like to think it’s because of my superior bouquet carrying technique. If I ever manage to actually get down the aisle myself, I imagine I’m going to be pretty bloody good at it by then. I’ve certainly had a lot of practice.

Anyway, the point of this post (yes, there is one, I promise) is that 27 Dresses was on the telly last night and as I was watching it I was reflecting back on some of the more memorable moments in my bridesmaid career. And I thought I’d share a few of them with you:

Putting my heel through the skirt of my bridesmaid dress at Em’s wedding. Unfortunately this occurred about two minutes before we were due to walk out the door to go to the church, not on the dance floor after partaking a little too eagerly in the beverage package later that night. Luckily, however, it was at the back and you couldn’t even notice it. At least, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t. No one mentioned anything about seeing my undies anyway.

Kriso riding it like she stole it

Giving Kriso a few too many cock-sucking-cowboys at her own Hen’s party, which resulted in her entering a semi-comatose state about three-hours into proceedings. She never made it past dinner. An amateur bridesmaids error that one. Still, while she was on it, she really rode it like she stole it.

Finding my calling as a Jewish wedding speech maker. I’ve never received more compliments in my life than I did after I made a bridesmaid speech at Dana’s wedding. Seriously. I’d bump into people on the street two years later and they were still talking about it. Unfortunately I think it had not-a-lot to do with me and a whole-lot-to-do with some comments I made about Jewish weddings. Seems that Jewish people don’t get a lot of non-Jewish people making their wedding speeches. Now, if only I could find a few more Jewish friends, or get adopted by a Jewish family, I reckon I could make a career out of Jewish wedding speeches.

Want to see my five minutes of fame? You can check it out right here.

After Ali had calmed her nerves...

Walking from the hotel to the park for Ali’s wedding and having to make a pit-stop at the corner store to get her a drink of water because she was so ‘parched’. We could see all the guests in the park from where we were standing huddled outside the shop in all of our wedding finery, so I shouted out ‘Won’t be a sec, just putting my lotto numbers in while Ali has a ciggie to calm her nerves!’. Okay, not really. But I’m sure everyone wondered what in the hell we were all doing.

Getting pushed out of the way for the bouquet catching at Sal’s wedding. And I mean that quite literally. Some girl’s mother grabbed my arm and pulled me aside and said ‘Sorry, but Sandy** needs to get to the front. She’s my only daughter not yet married.’ Another amateur mistake. Stand your ground girls, stand your ground.

Thanks to Sal, Kriso, Dana, Em, Ali, Liss and Cass for inviting me to be a part of your big days so I could have these wonderful (if not some slightly cringeworthy) memories. I honestly think that there is no greater privilege in a female friendship than being asked to be a bridesmaid. Well, apart from organ donation. Or being a surrogate to your unborn child. Definitely top three though.

I just hope I didn’t blink in too many photos.

I would also like to say, just quietly, that I am very thankful that I was not a bridesmaid in the 1980s. There was a lot of taffeta involved back then. And perms. The combination of which is really just bad all round.

*Technically speaking it should not be called 27 Dresses. It should be called 26 Dresses and a Black Dinner Suit.

** Name has been changed to protect her identity. And for the record, yes, she is married now. I am not. You do the maths.

Why the blind date is dead

Last week a couple of my friends tried to set me up on a blind date.

Now, I’m not averse to being set up, despite a few disasters in my twenties when I really began to wonder whether my friends really knew me at all. Bless their cotton socks for trying, but honestly -I’d find myself sitting across the table from a mute accountant (sorry, don’t mean to stereotype) or a guy in a beanie and Birkenstocks, and I’d think ‘Really? Really?? This is who my friends think would be a good match for me?’

You’d think this would have turned me off blind dating forever. It hasn’t. I’m 34 and single; clearly I have no idea how to find an appropriate mate myself. I’ll take all the help I can get.

But what I found at last week is that there isn’t actually such a thing as a blind date anymore. In fact, the blind date is as good as dead. It’s been killed by social media.

See, when I was in my twenties, I had to rely solely on the judgement of my friend when it came to the looks stakes of my blind date. You know, a description that went along the lines of ‘He’s perfect for you! He’s tall, and he has brown hair (under the beanie), and…..well, he’s really tall!’ So you’d turn up at the agreed meeting point armed with nothing but a vague description that could fit half the men in Brisbane, and a single red rose clutched between your teeth.

Not anymore. Now you can jump on the internet and pull up their Facebook photo faster than you can say ‘Did your grandma really knit that for you?!’. And the same goes for them. No longer am I just a tall blonde, I’m a tall blonde with a slightly lazy left eye, crows feet and a touch of regrowth. Actually, I’m wearing blue rimmed plastic sunglasses and a panama hat in my Facebook photo, so I’m a tall blonde with no fashion sense.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I could look up his photo pre-date until one of the guys I work with said ‘So what does he look like?’ and I said ‘I have no idea. It’s a blind date (derr).’ And he said (slowly, to make sure I could understand) ‘What, haven’t you looked him up on the internet (derr)?’ So we did.

Obviously he looked up my photo too because at around 3pm on the afternoon of the planned not-at-all-blind date, he called in sick. He sounded genuinely apologetic, but I can’t be fooled. I know it wasn’t man-flu. It was Facebook fright. 

Damn those blue sunglasses. 

So my blind date which wasn’t really a blind date didn’t turn out to be any kind of date at all. Sigh. Looks like its back to the eligible bachelors at Bravo for me……