Compared to many women, I haven’t been a bridesmaid that often.    I don’t come from a large family and only have a  small circle of good friends.   So I’ve only done the bridesmaid thing four times:  two sisters, one high school friend, one college friend.    I was a bride  once.  Yeah, that one didn’t work out.   Took a generation not to work out, but . . .   I digress.    The hundreds of dollars I spent on pictures for my own wedding, the dress  — well , it’s all boxed  — like some sort of evil time capsule.  Wedding Leftovers.

However,  hanging in my house is a picture of me in full bridesmaid regalia from my college friend’s wedding.    The gown was lilac colored, off the shoulder.   I was having a damn good hair day if I do say so myself.  It was one of those good hair days that ironically women usually only have at night while home alone.  But I was having a good hair day on a day where my picture was going to be taken.  Score!!!    The picture is a candid of me laughing at the church, fussing over  — whatever —  minutes before the ceremony.   Behind me is one of the other bridesmaids, now twice divorced, also smiling and happy.     It was a good day.  My friend was getting married to a guy I really liked  (this was before he lost his mind), her other bridesmaids were a hoot  and it was a gorgeous Spring day.   It was before I swore off weddings and became so cynical (in other words, I was newly married and child-free).

The wedding was beautiful, went off without a hitch.   My friend was the kind of girl who always had perfection just happen.   Unfortunately, the perfection didn’t last, however, and she and the guy I really liked eventually divorced.   For as perfect as things were for her then, they got as bad as it gets — i.e.,  he knocked  up another woman  — yeah, that bad.   So, the guy I really liked?  Well,  I don’t like him so much anymore.  Nope, nope.    See Remote Attendance at Weddings —  Royal or Otherwise.   But she got through it and last year she  married a guy I don’t know at all — but he’s a guy she really likes and loves and that’s all that matters.

Recently she came to my house and saw that picture from her first wedding hanging on my wall.   She had framed and  given me  the picture many, many years ago, but when she saw it she did a little double take and said:

“Wait, is that  my wedding?”

Yeah, I responded,  “I hope you don’t mind,   but I looked good and so happy that day and I always liked that picture.”

“No, it’s fine.  You did look good that day.  And look there’s Molly behind you . . . “

“Yeah, she looked good, too.”    She did.

We both smiled silently and my friend went on to look at the other pictures on my wall.  It was okay to hang that picture.  She was okay with it.   Those were simpler times.

My point is this.  For those women who tire of always being the bridesmaid, you do leave with pictures and memories that are completely independent of the success of  a  marriage.  Rejoice in them.  Hang them.   Show them.  Photoshop out the bride and groom in later years if need be.    But the fun of the occasion, the stories, the mementos — these are things to savor years — and styles,  later.

It’s  funny, being a bride can be so fleeting.  Sometimes, it can be disastrous, and sometimes all evidence of it just needs to disappear.   Being a bridesmaid, though, now that’s  forever and that’s a good thing — especially if you were having a good hair day.

Just Me With . . . a lilac off-the-shoulder dress, a really good hair day, and pictures from  somebody else’s   wedding I can happily hang on my wall — even though the bride can’t . . . . because, you know,  the  groom ended up being such a schmuck and all.