Size Matters

“Just order me a size 4.”

Famous last words.

My dear friend is taking the plunge. Tying the knot. Getting hitched. And I? Am showing up for the occasion. In a hot pink dress.

Bridesmaid city, here I come!

One advantage to the 50% divorce rate is now I get to do that wedding shenanigans all over again. Remember that? Every summer for a good solid four to five years during our 20’s it was wedding after wedding after wedding.

Fifteen years later?

Divorce after divorce after divorce.

Which means only one thing: suck in the gut and put the silicon slices in the bras, girls. It’s time for the Bridesmaid Tour; Act Deux.

Sara is my first divorced friend to head back into matrimony and I am ready. Bring on the limo, the open bar, the groomsmen, and the chicken dance. Oh wait. I forgot the ceremony. Ah hem. I meant, bring on the commitment! (After that it’s booze, boys, and a band.)

Hope is alive and it’s starting right here. With a big fat party. And me. In a size four fuchsia frock.

Wait. Make a that a different size. Might wanna put a one in front of that four.

You see, bridesmaid dresses are actually instruments of emotional torture with sizing designed to turn everyone insecure and anorexic. For some odd reason, they are sized terribly strange. A woman can be, for example, a size 8 in everything from skirts to shorts but a bridesmaid dress? Oh no. That’s a size 20.

And I’m not even a little kidding!

Case in point. The size 4 I ordered? Yeah. About that.

When it arrived I took one look at it and thought perhaps I’d mistakenly been sent the flower girl dress. A very slutty flower girl dress.

This thing was tinier than Tinkerbell! I could be a corpse and this thing would not fit. Fifty seven years after I am dead people could exhume my body, put this dress on my remains, and definitively announce with a defeating sigh, “Nope. It still won’t zip.”

And so I go through the interesting process of reordering a different size. Blackberry on speaker, I stand in my underwear in front of my mirror with a tape measure and diligently announce my numbers to the manager of the bridal shop.

“36 inches,” I scream to the speaker perched atop my dresser.

“And that is your?” the woman’s voice echos back.

“Bust,” I clarify and add, “but I’m wearing a padded bra. Without it I think I am a negative five.”

She laughs and asks me if I plan on wearing a padded bra when I wear the bridesmaid dress.

“Sh-yah! If I don’t I’ll be mistaken for a teenage boy in drag, lady. Trust me.”

I then measure my waist. Ugh. I need to cut down on the salt. I consider lying but really don’t feel like repeating the microscopic dress debacle so I accurately report the number.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Maybe I should tell her I had a salty lunch . . . or that I’m six months pregnant. She comments on my “interesting” proportions. I make a face at my phone and silently mouth, “Bite me.”

When we’re done she tells me that according to her sizing chart for this designer I’m about a size 10 bust, size 12 waist, and a size 14 hips.

I look in my mirror. I’m wearing a size four pair of designer jeans at the moment.

I am 5’6” and weigh 130 pounds on a bad day, 125 pounds on a good day. Every single article of clothing I own is a 4. HOW can this be right?

I suck it up and tell her to just order me a 14 to be safe but of course, I do need to tell the woman that normally . . . I am a 4.

“That is odd . . .” she says.

She thinks I am lying. I can tell. I want to snap a camera phone picture and show her that yes, I am a 4. Okay, I could maybe lose 5 pounds. I’ve had 2 children, the abs are not what they used to be but geeze Louise, lady!

But I don’t say anything.

What’s important is I am getting a dress in the mail in a month that will definitely not fit my 8-year-old daughter.

And who cares if it’s a 4, 14, or 44? What’s more important is that I’ll be in the full and proper uniform for the party!

I mean.

Wedding.
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Congratulations, Rick and Sara! Love and blessings as you embark on your new life together, I could not be more honored to be a part of this special day. Muah! ~Audra