SOB: Part Two

In the months leading up to and following my sister's marriage, I — as sister of the bride and maid of honour — learned absolutely nothing about planning weddings, bachelorette parties or showers.  I haven't even showered today.  I thank my loving, understanding sister for the kindness of limiting my responsibilities.  I do know if you want a kick-ass wedding, you should totally give her a call.

The day of Mara's wedding, I woke up grumpy.  I had managed to go for a run the morning before, but on the day itself, jet-lag was exacting its cruel, delayed revenge and getting the better of me.

Funny story, actually: I went for a run the day before my sister's wedding — the day of the rehearsal — at our local track.  I felt pretty darn good about myself.  I'm on vacation, I thought,  and I'm doing exercise.  It was a Friday morning, and no one else was at the track, save one blonde woman who had entered the park on the other side.  She was running towards me, and I didn't clock her until she was was about five feet away, at which point I realised that this woman — the one other jogger out on a Friday morning — was my sister.  We laughed and shook our heads as we recognised one another.

This is the kind of person my sister is: she gets up early the day before her wedding — the day she has to bring together a large number of people for a rehearsal and a meal, deal with any last minute disasters with poise and panache — to make sure she has time to exercise.  So, as it turns out, is her (then) fiancé, who rocked up sweaty a few minutes later from wherever he had been exercising.  No wonder they threw a kick-ass wedding.

But I digress.  I woke up grumpy the day of my sister's wedding.  I was jet-lagged, yes, but I was also reverting to thoughts and habits of adolescence.  The rehearsal lunch had been much more fun that I had anticipated.  I had, admittedly, been dreading the high school reunion aspect of that weekend.  You see, my sister's (now) husband was in my graduating class.  He was a star football player, a good student, well-liked.  He was (at least in my mind) one of the cool kids, and so were most of the guys who comprised his half of the wedding party.

Despite my anxieties, I found that ten years had been plenty long enough to level the playing field.  I don't mean in a Romy-and-Michelle-my-life-is-way-better-than-yours-now-revenge-plot way, because they all had taken interesting paths, too.  It seemed, thankfully, that we had all left high school far behind and had more in common than not.

Although I was getting on swimmingly with the groomsmen, I had a creeping, distinct, and most certainly fabricated and self-perpetuating feeling of outsiderness when it came to the bridal party.  Let me reiterate, THIS WAS COMPLETELY IN MY HEAD.  All of my sister's bridesmaids were lovely, friendly, welcoming and generally the kind of people that I'd expect Mara to hang out with, but their presence made me realise: I don't really hang out with Mara.  She's my sister, I love her, and we've come a long way from the days of psychological torture (her) and physical retaliation (me).  We get along really well, but I felt (in my own overly-anxious, -analytical head) that I couldn't compete.  These people were her best friends.  I was just an accident of parentage.  I had to be there.  She had to ask me to be her maid of honour.  I was family.

Old insecurities were accompanied by new obstacles.  My expired driver's license necessitated a reliance on my parents' transportation and an adherence to their respective schedules that I wasn't loving.  I left the rehearsal lunch with my lovely, kind, wonderful cousin, who gave me a ride home and helped talk me back from the ledge overlooking self-effacing, pity-party land.  At that point, I was dealing with reoccurring and aforementioned (in the previous post) feelings about being some kind of weird, non-marriage–wanting, hometown-leaving pariah (all completely self-inflicted titles).  She talked sense to me.

I only found out later that night (curse you Facebook and your truth-telling photos!) that after we had left, my sister, Ben, and all the rest of the bridal party had carried on revelling together, and even in their imbibed state, had managed to work together to place all the name cards for the next day's reception.  I was livid!  (Privately.)  How could they exclude me so thoughtlessly, I lamented to myself, I'm the maid of honour!

(Maybe because my cousin kindly drove me home when I would have had no other way of getting back across the river to my mom's house, as everyone else in the bridal party was staying in a nearby hotel?)

Oh, the humanity!

So yes, I woke up grumpy.  I felt a little left out.  All the ladies had stayed in a suite together the night before.  I bet they had lots of fun and exciting late-night conversations without me.  Was I invited to sleep on half a couch or one-third of a bed or the floor with the rest of them that night?  Yes.  Did I independently and sensibly decide to sleep in the comfort of an unshared double bed at my mom's house instead?  Yes.  But still.

I decided to shake it off.  This was not about me, I reminded myself, just as I had when I was considering the best punchlines for my non-traditional maid-of-honour toast.  This was Mara's day, and I was just a small part of it.  The most important and helpful thing I could do was behave and butt out.

My step-dad gave me a ride to the hotel in Portland, and we swung by an ATM so I could get some cash for whatever booze/taxi situation was to arise later that night.  I scuttled into the shop, inserted my UK card, entered the pin, and was denied.  Several times.  Idiot.  I completely forgot to tell my bank that I was travelling.  Idiot.

I returned to the car, frustrated, fighting a mounting sensation that the world was against me, but determined not to let it get to me.  My step-dad kindly offered to lend me money, as did my dad over the phone, and all was well again.  I was dropped off outside the Marriott hotel, bridesmaid dress bagged and draped over my arm.

I proceeded to the 16th floor where I knocked on the door with the room number I'd been given.  No response.  That's funny, I thought, but they're probably all just having such a great time that they can't even hear me.  Or they were at breakfast.  One of those.

I called my sister and told her I was at the door.  'That's weird', she said, 'I thought you needed a key card to get to this floor'.

'Nope!' I replied confidently.

'Okay I'm coming', she said, so I hung up.

Still no one at the door.  Hmmm.

I called her back.

Mara: 'Which Marriott are you at?'

Me: 'I don't know, the one I was dropped off at.'

Mara: 'The Waterfront?'

Me (becoming frantic): 'I don't know!  Is there more than one?'

Mara: 'Oh my gaaaahhhd, I wrote City Center in the email.  Why did he take you to the Waterfront one?'

Me (nearing tears): 'I don't know!  Where's the one you're at?  Is it far?'

Mara: 'I don't know.  Can't you get him to drive you here?'

Me (eyes burning, indignation rising): 'No!  He's gone and I don't have his number in this stupid phone!'

Mara: 'Don't panic.  The hair and makeup girls aren't even here yet.  They went to the wrong hotel, too.'

We agreed that I would get there somehow, and that it couldn't be to far, as downtown Portland is fairly small and walkable.

I burst into tears and called my mom.  Yes: 27 years old, wearing shorts, flip-flops, no make-up, and carrying a very fancy dress, I cried for my mommy in an upscale hotel lobby.

She answered the phone with, 'Hello?  Oh no!  I can't believe he took you to the wrong place, but I'm driving so I'm going to have to pass you to your aunt', at which point I tried really hard not to cry over the phone to my aunt, to whom I hadn't spoken since the previous Christmas.

'It's okay,' she assured me, 'Where are you?'

Drawing on my vague recollections of local geography from my high school and college summers of working in Portland, I described my location (I had walked a few blocks from the wrong hotel) and the address my sister had given me of the correct hotel.  At this point, my aunt made the extremely logical suggestion that I go back inside the lobby and ask them for directions to the other hotel, as it was part of the same chain, and they would know how to get there.  She also suggested I take a taxi.  I thanked her, hung up the phone, and did neither of those things.

It wasn't far to walk — maybe 20 minutes — and I was glad for the fresh air and the time to decompress.  I even impressed myself slightly with my memory of street names and landmarks in downtown Portland.  When I finally arrived at the City Center Marriott, I was slightly frazzled, but ready to do whatever was needed to help out.

Mara was composed, drinking gallons of water from a SuperGulp-style cup, and saying, 'Oh my god you guys, I'm freaking out', in an incredibly calm voice.  I delivered Ben's ring to the boys' suite downstairs, made some unwanted suggestions, got told, 'I don't need another mother!', tried not to cry, and drank champagne as it arrived — one bottle at a time — in the room.

(I was sharing the champagne with 8 or 9 other women in the room.  I was not drinking bottles on my own.  I was aware that I still had to stand in front of a crowd of people and speak twice without embarrassing my sister, so I was well-behaved.)

Everyone was having a good time, getting hair and makeup done, discussing the day's schedule, but there was a palpable tension in the air.  Weddings do make people a little bit crazy.  My sister was remarkably calm.  She only nearly lost her shit when Ben almost (or so she thought, actually) saw her in her dress before the ceremony for the second time, but she apologised later.  As this was my first 'behind the scenes' experience, I was struck by my sister's ability to remain calm while trying to act as the organiser and main event in one of the most important experiences of her life thus far.  Considering I nearly broke down over a malfunctioning debit card, a little bit of misdirection, and a hackneyed, sisterly insult, I am not cut out for such serenity under pressure.

What I loved the most about my sister's wedding was that it was her.  Okay, I'm sure there were some compromises and attempts to please both families, but what she wanted, more than anything, was to throw the best party ever.  And she succeeded.

SOB: Part One

(Sister of the Bride)

I've been trying to finish this post for weeks, but a combination of performing in a show every night of the week, having lots to say, and general laziness have kept me from doing so.  As a result, I have decided to recap the events surrounding my sister's nuptials in instalments.

I give you: PART ONE! (Being Maid of Honour)

So, my sister's married.

Let me not spend too much time saying that it's a little bit weird when one's sibling gets hitched -- let alone one's only sibling, let alone one's younger sister -- because I pretty much always knew Mara would get there way before I did, if I did.  Like, always always.  Pretty much since she was born almost 25 years ago.  Even then.

That said, when I got the text just under a year ago that said 'I'M ENGAGED!! Call me', I did have moment of hysterical, stereotypical, older sister life-choice-questioning.  This was only exacerbated when I went home over Christmas and spent an evening with my sister, her fiancé, my cousin and her husband, in which the entire conversation revolved around weddings and babies, and I thought (for a brief second), What is wrong with me? Why don't I want this? Why am I so weird?  There was no Lamaze breathing involved, but I did feel momentarily like an alien, and my life outside of my home town seemed to exist in another dimension.

Also, in my head, my sister is still this age, so it's hard to think about her doing anything grown up.

(She's the cute one, by the way.  I'm the one with the over-sized, unnecessary glasses that were prescribed by a quack eye doctor who was trying to make a quick buck.  We both, however, suffered the indignity of bowl cuts at the hands of our father.)

But I got over it, got over myself, and tried to be as involved in the conversation and planning as anyone who knows nothing about marriage and only has a vague, vacillating desire to procreate can be.

Before my visit home, when I finally got to talk to her on Skype, Mara asked me to be her maid of honour.  I cried.  Well, I teared up.  For some reason (possibly related to childhood nerdiness insecurities), I did not think that out of my sister's throngs of super cool friends, she would ask me.  Also, I live really far away and was concerned that -- aside from not grasping the concept of 'showers' or 'bachelorette parties' -- I would not be able to lend a hand or plan things very well from that distance.

My sister patiently responded, 'Of course I was going to ask you', and then assured me that I didn't need to do anything but show up.

And so, aside from a brief discussion at Christmastime, I proceeded to forget about the whole thing for the next 10 months.  Yes, I briefly considered joining (though never planning) the bachelorette party, until the other five bridesmaids informed me Mara wanted to go to Vegas.  That option was slightly out of budget/time constraints, plus I'm not much of a Vegas girl anyway.  At least, I'm pretty sure I'm not, having never actually been there.

I heard about the shower, sent some flowers, and also sent in my measurements for a dress.  A week before the wedding, Mara asked me if I wanted to do a reading at the ceremony and a toast at the reception.  I said 'Sure', because talking in front of people is my job.

I arrived the Tuesday night before the wedding completely jet-lagged, but ready to jump in and help with any last minute ribbon-tying or paper-folding, but as ever, Mara didn't want my help.  Or anyone's.  She's pretty self-sufficient, that sister of mine, and like me (I suspect), would rather do something herself than let someone else screw it up.

So all I had to do before the wedding day arrived was practice my reading, and write my toast.  The reading was fine.  I decided not to memorise it, because forgetting the words would be super awkward, so I just familiarised myself with the text, and then moved on to panicking over what I was going to say at the reception without talking for 9 years, forgetting to mention Ben (the groom), or embarrassing my sister or myself.

I laboured over my notebook for days.  What to say without sounding cheesy, or worse, inadvertently envious?  I wanted to joke about our fights and my jealousy when we were kids, but without making it seems like I still secretly resented her (I don't).  I did not want to be that Maid of Honour, the one who gets drunk and says, 'Isn't my sister pretty?', but with an evil glint in her eye.  I wanted to be funny!  I wanted to impress.

But then I remembered that it wasn't about me, and that made things a bit simpler.  This wasn't my wedding day, and it wasn't my stand-up show or my story at a party either.  This was about Mara.  I typed up a page of things I thought it would be nice to say, we did the whole wedding thing (more on that later), and I arrived at the reception, ready (if nervous) to say my piece.

I thought, based on the few 'traditional' weddings I've been to, that the toasts would be done right away.  I was wrong.  My sister and Ben spent an hour taking photos (as scheduled) while the bridal party hid upstairs so we could make a grand entrance together.  That was one extra hour to panic slightly, and not drink too much so as not to become nightmare MOH as described above.

(These photos happened much later in the evening, once I did allow myself to start celebrating.  Heavily.)

Once we did get downstairs, dinner was promptly served.  I expressed my growing concern to my sister, asked her whether or not I should bring up my bit of prompt paper, and once again, she responded patiently and sagely: 'Anne, you know what you want to say, and I know it's going to be fine.  You don't need the paper'.  I felt reassured, but still did not know when these toasts were happening.  I chatted and ate, all the while sure I would be called into action at any moment.  More courses kept arriving.

It felt as if hours were passing.  Mara and Ben had decided to try to get around to greet every one of their 180 guests.  The dinner had finished and the tunes were picking up.  It was the first wedding I'd ever been too where guests started dancing before the bride and groom had their first dance, but no one seemed to mind.

The best man and I were finally called up when I had finally relaxed into conversation and started in on a glass of wine.  Mara and Ben were with us by the DJ's table, and he handed me the mic.  As I do at a stand-up gig, I had a few notes written on my wrist in case I drew a total blank, but I'm pretty sure I got through most of what I wanted to say.  I don't really remember, as it really did happen very quickly, but I was praised later on the brevity of my toast, so I think it was as much reality as my adrenaline-clouded perception.

I saw my sister's face go cold for one second when she thought I was going to say something embarrassing, but I didn't, and she immediately looked relieved.  She hugged me afterwards and said, 'That was really good'.  And it was.  It was all really good.

Coming soon: PART TWO!  All of the other things that a sister's wedding entails. 

Wedding season begins

A few weeks ago, I went to my second cousin's wedding.

This is one of two second cousins that I only realised I had a few years ago when we reunited on my mom's recommendation whilst I was living in France.  I knew my mom still had cousins in the UK (my grandparents are Scottish), but I didn't realise there were any kicking around in my generation.

In the strange turn of events that has reversed the immigration of my family to the US (okay, not my whole family, just me, but it has that "full circle" sentiment), I have bonded with these cousins, and when the younger one decided to get hitched, he invited me along.

I didn't know many people at the wedding.  In fact, other than the half-dozen or so people I am directly related to, I only knew one person.  We created the false appearance of being together by arriving together, and I didn't want to cramp his style.

Weddings are obviously — if I understand movies to be an accurate reflection of life — rife with desperate (probably sexy), single women whose desperation and single status are being thrown in their faces by the ONE THING they want MORE THAN ANYTHING: marriage OR, if you get them drunk enough, any single dude in sight.

Anyway, I wanted to let my non-date get on with the mingling, so I had a lot of time for personal reflection.  Here are some things I learned (or was reminded) about myself:

1.  My camera is shit

Or I am a terrible photographer.  Or both!  My digital camera is definitely old, and when I bought it on sale four years ago before moving to France, I didn't know anything about appealing features, other than low price.

In any case, the only photos that turned out from that day were those taken by other people.

The good news is, I now have lots of fun pictures of me with relatives that I don't get to see very often, including one with a my Gran's sister's sister-in-law (you figure it out) whose name is also Anne!

The bad news is that I have no reasonable photos of the actual bride and groom, or of the ceremony itself.  Maybe I should stop taking my camera out of the house, altogether.

2. I am bad at turning off my hospitality-industry self

REALLY bad.  It is a special combination of social awkwardness and control mongering (sprinkled with a pinch of critical nature) that makes a person want to clear away champagne glasses and serve canapés rather than interact with unfamiliar human adults.

This was the first wedding I had attended in a year at which I was not a member of the service staff, and I found myself either gripping my own thigh to prevent myself from removing empty glasses from outdoor ledges, or engaging in conversations with strangers about what the service staff was doing wrong.  Because it's okay to be a dick about service when you're part  of the service industry.  Right?

3. I like holding babies and playing with children

In fact, I like both of those things way more than trying to make small talk with people I will never, ever see again.  (Refer to above feelings about interacting with unfamiliar human adults.)

I really like babies.  You might call it a 'maternal instinct' or my 'biological clock ticking away', but  I have loved babies since I was about 7 and saw myself fit to look after the 'smaller children' at family gatherings.  I was definitely not old enough to bear them, so there.  I get all warm and fuzzy when I see babies and I like to hold them and coo and cradle them back and forth.  (Also, holding a baby means no free hands to obsessively do the waitstaff's job.)  Sue me.

I also have a survival instinct.  I like to hold babies for a little while, and then I like to give them back.

Playing with children is something I probably enjoy more now than when I was a child.  Okay, that can't be true, but I was kind of an anxious nerd of a kid, and so many games seemed to involve a level of athleticism that I did not possess, so — as not to injure my fragile pride — I spent most recesses in the library.  In fact, I think they made a new rule limiting the number of recesses you could spend in the library per week because of me.

Now, though, I love playing with kids.  They are so much easier to win over than adults.  Instead of talking about the weather — and that painful, 12-minute conversation actually did happen — or explaining what it is you do, you can just be silly and make up games like Put Your Foot On a Rock!  Kids love it when you're silly.  Plus, I have become much more athletic in my 20s than I was as a child, and I can set the bar really low with games like the above-mentioned and by competing against a 4-year old.

4. I am softening on this whole marriage/wedding thing


I used to always say having kids was much more important to me than ever getting married.

I'm sure, if pressed, certain friends would recall me declaring, "I'll never get married!" in a highly impassioned manner.

I've definitely said that if I did get married, I would not have a wedding, "because there are better things to spend money on!"  I still think it's silly to spend what some people do on weddings, but I've been to some really special ones of late (discounting the ones I've worked at), and I guess I can kind of see the point.  Love and celebrating with friends and all that.

That's the end of the list but I just want to say one or two more things.


I had a lot of fun at this wedding.  My list makes it seem like all I did was complain to toddlers about the quality of service, but I only did that for a few minutes before I realised I was at the wrong table.

Thanks to the magical social lubricant that is alcohol, I did manage to have ongoing conversations with adults, and I might have even made some witty remarks.  I danced, I mingled, I ate a delicious dinner, and my trusty non-date let me pass out for the entire train journey back to London, ensuring only that I did not carry on sleeping and miss the last tube.

If more of my days were filled with holding babies, drinking pink Prosecco, and sleeping through long public transit journeys, I don't think I'd have much to complain about.