Sometimes a bridesmaid

Well, I picked up my bridesmaid's dress from the shop where I took it to have it altered. I asked the lady to bring in the bodice and shorten the straps, which she did, but the straps were too short. I asked her to lengthen them somewhat and they are still too short and are slightly uneven. So I guess I will take the dress to the dry cleaners where I've had pants taken in and hemmed, where maybe I should have gone to begin with.

The shop where I took the dress has "brides" in the name, but it is clearly primarily a quinceañera store. I'm probably the only white woman in her 30s to ask for a BM dress alteration there in a long time, if not ever. Perhaps that would explain the lady's bemusement and her disinterest in working on a second dress I brought there. I know the dress is too long, but she insisted it isn't, which made me think that she just didn't want to deal with more straps. Oh well, considering the job she did on this dress it's just as well.

This is only the third time I've been a bridesmaid. I say "only" because I have attended close to three dozen weddings and have been closely involved in about eight, as a reader or in the role of organizing things behind the scenes, a role Mrs. P. played when Zirpu and I got married. In 1998 I stood up in a wedding in a navy blue cocktail dress that I still wear from time to time, and in another one that same year we eight bridesmaids wore burgundy dresses that were the story of that wedding: The necklines on the bodices were much too low, and all eight of us pledged that in any pictures we would be holding our bouquets very close to our bodies.

I like weddings. In my experience, everyone is in a good mood, ready to party and full of general goodwill toward the bride and groom and their families. Every wedding has a story, and even though sometimes when it's happening it's hard to see that it will make a good story later, it usually does.