Bridesmaid dresses, revisited.

Okay so the rest of my road trip updates are coming, but first let's jump in my bridesmaid dress time machine! I was house-sitting for my parents while they drove back from Iowa with a bunch of Sarah's stuff (because when she left Iowa just over a year ago she didn't expect to immediately meet my brother and end up moving to California permanently) and the wedding presents so I decided to dig up all my old bridesmaid dresses to see if they still fit. AND THANK THE SWEET BABY JEEZUS, THEY DID! Well, mostly. So here you go, Internet...a trip down memory lane (and just so you know, most of these pictures were taken in my parents' basement...we do not live in clutter-filled squalor, I assure you):

The first wedding I was in was in 1997, I was 20 years old, I didn't think anyone would ever, ever, EVER ask me to be in a wedding and I was SO EXCITED when my friend Stacey asked me. We went to West Valley College together and we were friends for sure, but were we bridesmaid-worthy friends? Not so much. In fact, she moved to Colorado like two days after the wedding and I haven't seen or spoken to her since. BFFs 4 --> ? Yeah. We still exchange Christmas cards though. But anyway, I wanted to be in a wedding and she asked so I said yes.

We went to order the dresses (and I'm just now realizing that I know she had three or four bridesmaids but I have NO memory of who they were) and it was your standard polyester, floor-length bridesmaid dress. The sample and the one in the picture were kind of an eggplant or plum color so when she said they'd be "amethyst" I thought that meant "purple" or at least the same color as the one we'd seen.

No.

Turns out, "amethyst" is code for "Barney purple." Like, STRAIGHT UP Barney Purple.

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Except DAMN IT, the picture of the dress is looking much more regular purple than it actually is. It's Barney purple, I swear.

It would be less linebackery if I had someone to secure the shoulder thing in back, but you get the gist of it. And HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE SHOES:



WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING?

I shudder even thinking about those shoes.

Ooh, and look at the strap lines across my ankles in that picture -- that's where the straps from bridesmaid ensemble #4 wore off the spray tan. Ha. But anyway, I think it's safe to say I've made great strides in footwear since 1997.



Dress #2 was worn for my oldest friend Tamara's wedding eight-ish years ago. It zipped when I tried it on but ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Internet...it wasn't pretty. Like REALLY not pretty. I was bummed about that but then I remembered that it looked like crap on me at the time and I looked like a freaking SAUSAGE in this icy lavender column dress with a chiffon train and butt-bow:



I wore two girdles to suck my shit into that one and since this time I was trying it on with my pajama pants still on, I think it's okay that it looked bad.

Poor Tamara though...we all looked bad in that dress and not because it was a bad dress (I mean, it wasn't an awesome dress, but I get what she was going for) but because nobody had it altered. It magically fit her sister really well but I was the fat and sausagey bridesmaid and her two other bridesmaids were stick-thin and they were swimmmmmmmmmmming in their dresses. Those pictures are fantastic. And by "fantastic" I mean "HORRIFYING." So horrifying, in fact, that even if I had electronic versions of them, I wouldn't share them with you Internet.

OMG AND THE SHOES!!!!!!!!!!



I don't remember them being this horrible and chunky but maaaaaaan. I'd GUFFAW if you suggested I wear those those today.

Dress #3 was for Christa's wedding three years ago:



It was the highest quality dress of them all and despite the complaints that it was unflattering on everyone, I actually think it worked out well. I mean, it's not a dress I'd pick for myself, and it would have been better if it was shorter, but it's a freaking WEDDING and all things considered, this dress was pretty good.

That said, no dress is so good that I don't look stupid when I dance:



Dress #4 was worn a week ago today for my brother's wedding:



This dress had to be custom made for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is because Jessica McClintock is a hater and doesn't make fatty sizes. Despite the dressmaker making me feel like a fat tub-o-lard, it turned out well. It stretched out like crazy though so I was a mess by after-party time, but those pictures have since been BURNED.

BONUS PROM DRESS:

Back in the days of yesteryear I figured that since Lane Bryant didn't offer prom dresses, fatty prom dresses just didn't exist so I recruited my aunt, a former seamstress, to make my dress for me. I was a tenter back then so I picked a design that was big and dumpy and unflattering:



But don't worry, Internet...I didn't wear that to the prom. I tried it on and went OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD and my mother promptly took me to the mall and I ended up with a much more flattering dress that I felt pretty in, even though I wouldn't be caught dead in it today.

Why keep all these bad dresses that I'll never wear again?

It's 100% for size comparisons. Like, even though I'm not feeling like my sassiest these days, dresses I wore at 17, 20, 24 and 29 still zip. That's a victory, yo.

Picture Post with BONUS bridesmaid dress whining.

I'm one of those asshole iPhone users. I'm also one of those asshole iPhone users who is experiencing technical difficulties. I have an older iPhone though so my issues are different and special and I'm not holding my breath that they'll be fixed anytime soon so my previous feeble attempts at moblogging are nixed until I can stop the same picture from posting SEVENTY FIVE TIMES. Or, three times, but still...nobody wants to see pretty pictures of me getting my hairs did AT ALL, much less multiple times.

But there are still pictures I want to share with you, Internet! So you know what this means, right? It means we're going old-skool: Picture posts with unrelated pictures. Variety is the spice of life.

Off we go!

I had dinner with my east coast gbf and his bf last week. He was like "How come whenever I look at your Flickr pictures, there are always pictures of food?" I'm not really sure why I like taking pictures of stuff I make, but I think it's similar to the ol' "If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?" thing. Like, if I'm the only one who gets to see how delicious my dinner looks, is it still delicious? I don't know. Roll with me here.

So anyway, here's how pretty one of my dinners from last week looked:



It was coconut curry chicken and it was daaaaaamn good, but the sweet smell of the sauce stuck around for four or five days and no amount of candle lighting or window opening could get rid of it and OMG I WANTED TO DIE. So no more coconut curry chicken for me, but thanks for the recipe, Rachael Ray.

Soooo, if you happen to be following me on Twitter, you know that yesterday's bridesmaid dress fitting made me cry. The dress itself is perfectly fine, but it still depresses the hell out of me because of the arm situation. YES, I made my bed and now I have to lay in it, but I can't even begin to tell you how torturous this whole thing is for me.

And BLAH BLAH BLAH STFU to anyone who says "wear a wrap" or "I'm sure your arms aren't THAT bad" because I swear to God I don't want to hear it. #1, YOU'RE WRONG and #2, even if you were right (which you're not), it wouldn't matter because my pride is stronger than well-intentioned people trying to make me feel better about it.

So anyway. Back to the crying. I had to have my dress made so Sarah bought the fabric and the pattern and I took it to a local dressmaker and got measured and was told to come back six weeks later.

I was supposed to go back last week but the DREAD was sooooooooo overwhelming that I put it off and put it off and put it off and finally forced myself to go in for a fitting yesterday. It was seventy different kinds of humiliation (like the lady having to lift my arm fat up to get a pin under there) but I was able to maintain my composure most of the way through the fitting. I didn't lose it until she started telling me that she wanted to bring up the waistline into more of an empire waist because it looked better. Yeah, I agree, but this dress is not my choice. I have to have the same dress as everyone else and that means I have to have the waist riiiight about the same level as my spare tire. She points to the picture and in her broken English tells me that it won't look good because the people in the picture don't have "this" and she pokes my fat.

For reals. Seamstresses aren't a breed to hold back on the criticism and this wasn't the first time a seamstress has told me that a bridesmaid dress would look better on me if I lost a few pounds, but maaaaaaaan, I wasn't expecting the poke.

But she's totally right. I knew full well that the waistline in the picture would look horrible on me, so we split the difference and hopefully the sash that Sarah is making will disguise the fact that my dress is slightly more empire-ish than everyone else's.

So blah, blah, blah: My arms and the dress TORTURE MY SOUL.

But here's the bright spot in my ensemble:



I picked my shoes up from being dyed and I kinda love them. I don't think Sarah is all that hot for them, but the other day we were looking for earrings for her to wear for the wedding and we established that we have the exact OPPOSITE taste in accessories. She's into tasteful and I'm into PIZZAZ!

So, at least my shoes make me happy, which is a big deal since I was initially disappointed that I couldn't wear gold ones.

Speaking of Sarah, picture #3 is from Monday when I took Sarah and her friend Hillary on a tour of SF:



Hillary is visiting from Iowa and really, it couldn't have been a more beautiful day.

Sarah wanted to check out the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park so we did:



I don't get what the big whoop is about that place, but neither did Sarah, so we crossed it off the list of things to do with tourists from Iowa.

Hillary was the third Iowan I've shown around town and so far they all love Alamo Square:



And there you have it: A light picture post, but with lots of words.

To summarize: Curry stinks, I like my new red shoes and San Francisco is beautiful.