Bridesmaid Dresses or, It seemed like a good idea at the time

Bush Babe, one of my favourite bloggers, just posted a sweet and touching story about her wedding. I'd share one of my wedding photos with you but my scanner has gone belly up and is currently pining for the fjords. (Bonus points and initiation into ANW's personal fan club if you know what that means.)

I thought about wedding stories I could share, and there was one, tiny hiccup at the ceremony that still freaks out my husband of twenty-three years. The sweet woman in charge at the church had early, undiagnosed dementia and forgot to come and get me. The music started, and everyone stood, including the groom, and looked expectantly at the chapel doors. No bride. The organist went through the Entire Song, stopped, then played it AGAIN in its entirety. Still no bride, and at this point, the groom started to sweat and was convinced his beloved bride had bolted. Nope, she was downstairs, oblivious, peering in a mirror, chatting to the maid of honour, wondering when the woman was coming back to bring her upstairs. It was soon sorted out and the wedding proceeded. The relief on my soon-to-be husband's face was palpable, although it was tempered by the agony of having to endure the music a third time.

The reception, like the wedding, was a small affair without a professional photographer or speeches or flowers or any other folderol generally associated with weddings so we only have a handful of photos that guests took for us. We just wanted to get married, so we did it simply, in front of 48 invited guests, in an old chapel at McGill University. And then, in our "going away" outfits and with confetti in our hair, we ran from the reception and hopped on to a plane bound for Paris. There, in the City of Love, we took the motto a little too literally and came home pregnant. Our first child was brought home nine months to the day we married. And then fourteen months later, I was pregnant again. And then fourteen months after that... Let me put it this way - on my fourth wedding anniversary, I was expecting our third child. All I can say is, do NOT honeymoon in the City of Love unless you mean business. I would suggest you go to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, instead.

What I can show you is a photo of my sister "Yutha" and her husband at her wedding. My sister "Brink" and I are bridesmaids. I'm on the right, Brink is on the left, and the sister responsible for our dresses is in the middle. My question is, should we forgive her?

Bear in mind that when I stood beside my husband, a tall, handsome clean-cut kind of guy in a suit, we looked exactly like Barbie and Ken. (Yutha, do you have a photo of us?) Well, strictly and anatomically speaking, he isn't exactly like Ken. See City of Love above for clarification on that count.