the "costume" wedding

I had a friend from the old country that I met and worked with my first few years out of college. Let's call her "X". We were really close friends during that time, but after I left to go to Central America we lost touch, as often happens in the industry I was working in. Ten years later I got a call from her. She had somehow managed to track me down in Baltimore. She was getting married and wanted me to come.

I got the invite about a week later. It was an evening "costume wedding" occuring the weekend before Halloween. I'm not a person who likes Halloween, and I'm horrible at picking out costumes, so I was a little annoyed, but figured between myself and my friend Eva we could come up with something good. X and I spoke on the phone often over the next few months, but we talked about what we had been doing in the past 10 years, not the wedding.

At one point she and her boyfriend invited me to NYC to visit. I was at a bar with X and her friends. I stepped outside to smoke and her fiance came out with me. He was all over me, trying to get me to give him the key to my hotel room. It was disturbing. I ended up leaving right after breakfast the next day. The fiance made a point at breakfast of complaining about his hangover. I figured that was his way of saying "I was drunk last night! Oops! Did I hit on you? Ha ha!" I felt even worse about the whole thing when X asked me to be in her wedding party. After some wrangling with the family her mom agreed to let her have me as a double bridesmaid with X's sister. This was decided the week before the wedding, relieving me of having to get a dress or throw any parties. All I had to do was stand up there while vows were exchanged and to try to stay awake (religious services are worse than boring).

So the wedding was also held in NYC. At that time I had a very stressful job. I wanted to spend a three day weekend up there but couldn't because of work. So Friday night, while everyone else was at the rehearsal dinner, I was running around Saks looking for a dress after a 12 hour day in the office. It wasn't ideal to be looking for my costume the night before the wedding, but it was the only time I had to do it.

Eva and I had decided I should be a black cat. Yes, the decision was made while we were drinking. I showed up at her house around 830 PM Friday, and she got out her sewing machine. She was going to sew a tail I had also purchased that evening to the back of the dress. The dress was this great little Betsy Johnson black silk sheath with beads all over it. The bottom had a fringe of beads as well so it made a clicking noise when I walked. In most cases it was probably too avant garde, but I figured it would be fine for the costume wedding.

Eva and I drank a bottle of wine, and then she proceeded to try to sew the tail on the dress. Since the bodice of the dress was covered in beads, it was not easy to do. The needle would break on the bead, or the tail would sew on crooked, or the silk material would shred. Compounding the problem was that Eva and I had moved on to port. I passed out at their house (at that time I had two guest bedrooms there, mostly because I lived there on the weekend even though my apartment was only a 20 minute drive away) and barely woke up in time to leave for NYC.

Traffic was terrible and the 4 hour drive turned into 7 hours. X called frantically every half hour. I got to the hotel, showered, and pulled on my costume, which now consisted of the black dress with a tail, a set of cat ears attached to a head band (which, it turns out, I was allergic to), a collar with a bell on it, and then a fluffy grey scarf. Luckily the wedding was being held in the hotel. I got ready in 20 minutes and made a mad dash to the room where the wedding was supposed to be starting in 5 minutes.

But as I ran down the steps disaster struck. It turned out the tail was too heavy for the silk fabric of the dress. It literally fell off as I rounded a flight of steps, leaving me with a GAPING hole in the back of my costume. Insert "honey moon" joke here. I picked up the tail and ran behind the registration desk where two nice ladies safety pinned the tail on my dress, and then stapled the remaining gap. It was horrible but at that point what choice did I have.

By the time I got to the room, the bride's mother was standing in the hallway fuming. The rest of the wedding party had already paraded down the aisle, and the whole event was waiting on me to show up. As the mother got a look at my "costume", though, she whispered in the meanest voice ever "You are OUT of the wedding!" and stalked into the room. I followed behind, and all eyes turned on me.

That's when I noticed everyone else was wearing formal evening gowns and tux suits. I met eyes with X and she was blushing as much as I was. Seems she had talked me up quite a bit at the rehearsal dinner. And now here I was dressed as a cat. Turns out, when people from the old country (or, I guess, anywhere in Europe) say "costume" they mean "formal attire". When they say "fancy dress" they mean "costume". Is it any wonder we went to war with them twice in twenty years?

As if sitting on a cat tail with staples poking into my ass wasn't humiliating enough, I had no other clothes to change in to for the reception. I went back to the front desk and the ladies again helped me, taking the tail off and closing up the back of the dress so that on top of being an ass I wasn't also showing my ass. X did ask me to leave the cat ears on because she thought it was funny that in the two wedding party pictures I was allowed to be in I still looked like a cat. By the end of the evening they caused me to get a rash on my scalp that spread to my neck and forehead. Sexy.

And, as I was one of the few people not getting drunk I ended up having to take X's sister up to her room after she drank too much and passed out in a hotel toilet stall (you try climbing over the top of a stall in 4 inch heels and a dress). That was when she threw up on me. Also, during one of the traditional dances with the groom, he solicited me for sex, saying we could pretend to be taking presents up to the honeymoon suite. The camera man caught the whole exchange on tape. Finally, in the process of taking presents up to the honeymoon suite, I walked in on X's best friend fucking her date on the bed. Tacky.

X never spoke to me again after the wedding. I never even got a copy of the picture I was in. I'm not sure if it's because I showed up as a cat or because her husband hit on me or because her sister threw up on me or because I walked in on her best friend defiling the honeymoon bed. I heard from a mutual friend that they dissolved their union after two years of marriage. They didn't have any kids.

I do wonder if they fought over who got to keep their cat...

Yes, this was a true story. I know these things only happen to me.