I spent the better part of the day fighting for fitting rooms in Better Dresses with a million teenaged girls and their mothers. It is prom season. It is also wedding season. The million teenaged girls and their mothers were there for the former. I was there for the latter.

In three weeks I'm standing up for my friend L. at her wedding. I needed something to wear. The issue of dress has been a long, drawn-out and somewhat complicated process. Complicated mostly by the fact that I hate shopping and so does the other bridesmaid. But all is well. I now have an acceptable dress that is painfully simple, just the way I like it, and navy blue, which is the way the bride likes it. Behold:

Not bad for a bridesmaid�s dress, no? Although I�m more enamored with my rehearsal dinner dress:

Mostly, though, I'm in love with my wedding shoes, silver sandals for which, sadly, I cannot seem to find a picture. But trust me, I'm going to be a disco queen. But in a good way.

The fitting rooms were easy to find today by the clutch of men holding purses and G@meboy-playing little brothers, who inevitably gathered around the doorway. Inside the fitting rooms it was a cacophony of chatter, mother-daughter chatter, friend-to-friend chatter and, in the case of the lingerie fitting room, crazy stranger chatter. This particular crazy stranger offered a running narration of how each bra fit and what she was going to wear it for, a narration to which I sincerely wish I had never been a party.
It occurred to me today that I might have to give a toast. Not that I'm unwilling. I've known my friend L for something horrific like 16 or 17 years, so I should be fully qualified. But I'm never quite sure if I should assume I should give a toast, or whether I should pretend I know nothing about it until somebody asks and risk being caught off guard or offending someone because I didn't plan ahead. Clearly the only thing to do is to plan something and then be prepared not to say it. And then there is the issue of what to say. Ah, the power in my hands! The possibilities for public humiliation in front of all her friends and relatives are great. The toast is where bridesmaids can get back at the bride for making them wear an ugly dress. But I got a pretty nice dress, so perhaps I'll be big. But where's the fun in that?

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