Bridezilla’s got nothing on this bridesmaid

WE’VE come to expect a bit of bad behaviour from brides, but what happens when it’s the bridesmaid who’s a complete trainwreck? Well, that’s a whole different story, writes Katy Hall.

THERE are many situations in which some of us thrive, while others barely survive.

Crises, births, deaths and divorces, for example, I can do. Weddings, or more specifically, bridesmaiding, not so much.

I’ve been a bridesmaid twice before — once at my dad’s marriage to his second wife when I was 12, and another time when a friend from university asked. We weren’t that close when she asked me, but spurred on by the promise of a free dress and a weekend trip to rural Australia I said yes.

The first red flag of how utterly crap I would be at this task came when I decided that to avoid using any annual leave I would into fly into the regional town hosting her big day on the morning of the wedding. Timing would be tight, but surely my friend would understand, I reasoned. Just as she would appreciate that somehow my after work drinks had morphed into me getting home at 3am and staying up chain-smoking, drinking some more, and throwing some clothes into a suitcase before boarding a plane for her wedding two hours later, right?

Wrong.

My bridesmaid duty cues were more Kristen Wiig, and less Pippa Middleton. (Pic: supplied)

When I did somehow find myself standing in front of the bride-to-be and two other bridesmaids — looking decidedly more human than I and less than impressed at my dishevelled state — I promised that I would be fine come ceremony time and that this was nothing a power nap couldn’t fix.

So in the interest of multi-tasking, I slept during hair and makeup.

Unfortunately for me, I woke up in the chair looking like a Jon Benet Ramsay tribute act. But given my lousy behaviour, I figured I had no right but to smile and go with it.

I want to say that the rest of the day and the wedding itself was great, but in truth, there’s little of it that I can remember.

I know I spent much of the photocall vomiting covertly behind bushes and thinking about what my mother would say if she could see me, and my stick-on bra fillets sweating off and onto the floor at one point. I danced with someone’s parent and a groomsman and possibly even cried during a speech.

This could have been me at my friend’s wedding reception, I really can’t remember. (Pic: supplied)

But the one clear memory I do have is of waking up the next morning — two hangovers in tow — to discover that in my inebriated state a day earlier I’d thrown up all over the outfit I’d worn on the plane and had somehow failed to pack anything but T-shirts.

So, in the spirit of love and getting back home to Melbourne in one piece, I did what any desperate bridesmaid would do and put my one-shouldered purple diamante dress from the night before back on, threw one of my T-shirts over the top and headed to the main street of town in search of a store.

“Jeez, I didn’t know there was a B&S on last night,” the Lowes salesman said to me as I paid for the cheapest tracksuit pants I could find. Too tired and broken to explain, I just went with it. And later at the airport wearing my new pants, loafers and a Strokes T-shirt, I got some truly great looks, not least from the bride and groom who have rightly not spoken to me since.

Now that my own wedding is three months away I worry about what such bad behaviour I’ve invited upon myself. After all, they say that what goes around comes around, but in the case of being a bridesmaid I’m really praying that old adage won’t prove true. If it does, I’m in for some serious trouble.

Katy Hall is a writer and producer at RendezView.

Follow her on Twitter at @katyhallway and email [e-mail]