Diary of a Mad Bride (15 page)

A
fter the excitement and chaos of yesterday Stephen and I decided to spend today cuddled in bed. We rented some movies (
Stage Door
for me,
North Dallas Forty
for him) and ordered in Chinese food.

We also exchanged Christmas gifts. I gave him a twelve-pack of toilet paper. Each roll had the entire history of
basketball printed on it—statistics and all. He LOVED it so much, he practically unfurled a whole roll just reading it. Then he gave me a silver bracelet with a single charm. He said that every Christmas for the rest of our lives he's going to add a charm to the bracelet. The first one, a heart with a key.

It was the most romantic gesture. I cried straight through my wonton soup and well into my egg roll.

I
've got to do something about Gram. The more I think about her outrageous behavior the more I realize that my once-beloved grandmother is plotting a hostile takeover of my wedding glory.

• She tripped over the television cable when I announced my engagement.

• She insists my engagement ring symbolizes wantonness.

• She squealed to
Barry
about my cut-rate marriage proposal.

• She choked on turkey fat the minute my parents got sentimental about the wedding.

• She force-fed me divorce statistics.

• She maintains that my fiancé looks like Dan Quayle.

• And she humiliated me in front of my entire family, old and new, by claiming to have chipped her tooth on my Sacher torte!

Stephen thinks I'm overreacting. Anita thinks Gram's brilliant. Mandy suggested we institutionalize Gram until after the ceremony: “I told you families get nuts around
weddings.” And my mother says I'm paranoid: “Don't be ridiculous. She's an old woman.”

Well, I've got this old woman's number!
666!

L
ucy's back home from the hospital. I called to thank her for the blue enamel barrette she sent me as an engagement gift. It's belonged to Lucy since she was a child. She figured by June 22nd I'd have plenty of things that were old, new, and borrowed but that I might have difficulty finding something blue. I was amazed that despite her illness she'd found time to send me a gift, let alone something so thoughtful.

And for the record, it was the ONLY engagement gift we got. All those freeloaders at the engagement party came empty-handed. Don't they know “no gifts” is just a euphemism for “We know it's tacky to ask but bring something anyway”?

I'd been fantasizing about Lucy flying out for the party, but I knew it was unrealistic. Between the cost and her health it just wasn't going to happen. But since Lucy loves gossip (she subscribes to
The National Enquirer, Star
, and
People
magazine), I did my best to give her the gory details—Misty, the Brocktons, the Sacher torte, and most of all, Gram.

Lucy loved hearing every high and low point of the event. And she backed me up completely on the “Gram Is an Attention Stealing Octogenarian” theory. She said Gram's been a junkie for public adoration ever since 1956 when she appeared on the
Queen for a Day
show. Well, Gram will just have to face facts—

There's a new queen in town.

A
t 1
P.M.
this afternoon Stephen suddenly suggested we go sledding. Except there was no snow in the city and we didn't have a sled.

Stephen didn't bat an eye.

We ran to Grand Central Station, hopped a train, went to his mother's house, searched the attic, found his childhood sled, and spent the next four hours jockeying for the best runs with the local preteen set at the neighborhood park. It was a blast.

If only he'd apply that same sense of mission to planning our wedding.

T
his is the last New Year's Eve that I will ever be single. Exciting, yet somehow extremely unnerving.

N
ew Year's Resolutions:

1. Be a better person.

2. Lose ten pounds.

3. Remember how lucky I am to have met Stephen.

4. Enjoy the wedding plans (don't become a “Mandy”).

5. Stop making fun of Mandy.

6. Call Lucy twice a month.

7. Work harder at the magazine.

8. Be a more tolerant boss to Kate.

9. Resolve difficulties with Gram.

10. Keep my New Year's resolutions.

K
ate came back from the holidays in a major snit.

Apparently she “evaluated the situation” and doesn't like the way my wedding “has imposed upon her work environment.” Where does a twenty-one-year-old with a secretarial degree come up with this crap?

Too much Oprah. Or
Barry.

And to think I gave her a real Kate Spade handbag for Christmas. Maybe I should have given her that designer peanut brittle and kept the handbag for myself. Lord knows I could use a new handbag—

WAIT! It's only four days into the new year and I'll be damned if I abandon my resolutions so soon. Number eight—Be a more tolerant boss to Kate. Tolerance.

Maybe Kate's having trouble at home. Maybe Barry scolded her for not placing his story ideas at the top of the distribution packet. Or maybe she's just cranky because that mangy Backstreet Boy still hasn't answered her fan letters. Who knows. But whatever it is I must try to understand her position and respect her feelings. Besides, what if my wedding really has become a burden to her?

I
couldn't sleep last night. At 4:39
A.M.
I broke down and called the Psychic Phone Line. A woman with an oddly calm voice advised me to abandon all romantic plans.
Apparently Venus has descended into the House of Aquarius, where she's been shackled and held captive. Does anyone else find this alarming, or is it just me?

On a lighter note, my lucky numbers are 2 and 36.

F
ace #2, Murray Coleman, New York's “Bagel King,” has refused to be profiled in our annual issue.

Stephen tripped in a pothole on his way to work. After falling face-first onto the sidewalk he was taken to St. Luke's hospital, where he received thirty-six stitches above his left eye.

I will never call the Psychic Phone Line again.

M
andy reached into her bag of tricks (a.k.a. her bottomless pit of well-informed wannabe-chic women) and located a dress shop known for its reasonably priced copies of famous designer wedding gowns. After a cab ride down to the Bowery then a harrowing walk into a neighborhood generally reserved for drug dealers and Mafias of various ethnicities, we finally reached an old tenement building. In the basement window a hand-written sign read:

DRESES

Okay. I'm not a snob. And I certainly don't consider myself easily flustered. But the minute I caught sight of that misspelled sign through a dirty glass window in the bowels
of a dilapidated tenement building in the middle of a neighborhood that clearly God and the agents of gentrification had chosen to forget, I had only one thing to say—“TAXI!”

I was certain Mandy was already on her cell phone calling a cab.

But no. This was Superhero Mandy—able to go where no bride has gone before. She was marching down the basement stairs. Unwilling to be outbraved by
Mandy
, I anxiously followed behind.

The basement store was filled with racks of wedding gowns covered in plastic. Five young women sat hunched over sewing machines, and before you could say “sweatshop,” a burly middle-aged woman with a thick neck and hairy forearms brusquely introduced herself as Gayle. She wore a Yankees T-shirt and culottes. I hadn't seen a pair of culottes since fifth grade. With anxiety constricting my esophagus Mandy took it upon herself to inform Gayle that I was looking for a wedding dress, preferably a Carolina Herrera or Vera Wang knockoff.

Gayle blanched. Then bellowed, “Knockoff?! I don't have any knockoffs. Only high-quality merchandise. All original!” A quick glance around the shop revealed bins filled with clothing labels marked “Escada,” “Armani,” “Vera Wang.”

As the seamstresses frantically debated whether or not we were Immigration, Gayle continued to protest and wave her arms in the air. I gasped, certain I'd seen a pistol stuffed into the waistband of her culottes. Gayle was packing heat! Mandy rebuttoned her Anne Klein jacket and stood her ground. “Originals, designer imposters, whatever you like to call them, Gayle, is fine with us. But I think we both know what we're talking about. So how about showing us something nice in a cream silk satin with a princess neckline.”

But Gayle was having none of it. “What are you two, anyway? Cops? Well, forget it, Charlie's Angels. We're closed.”

Charlie's Angels? God, I hope I'm not Sabrina.

Mandy impatiently tapped her heel. “Look, Gayle, I didn't come down here after a long day's work just to be sent home.”

Did I mention that Mandy sells residential real estate? In
Manhattan.
She does not take negotiations lightly. “Now, my friend would like to see some dresses, wouldn't you, Amy?”

Quick! Which is more important—finding the dress of my dreams or living to see my wedding day? Luckily Gayle made the choice for me. “Like I said, we're closed.” She threw open the front door. And when Mandy strutted toward the exit, hissing, “I canceled an aromatherapy session to come here,” Gayle just stared blankly.

During the cab ride home Mandy carped about the lack of professionalism in the garment industry while I thought wistfully about the chiffon dress with the Basque waistline hanging in the back of Gayle's shop.

Wasn't this supposed to be fun?

I
f you can get past the whole “staples in your face” thing, Stephen actually looks pretty handsome with his stitches.

Sort of a young Charles Bronson.

Official THINGS TO DO List

1. Choose wedding date

2. Tell boss wedding date

3. Vacation time for honeymoon

4. Decide on honeymoon

5. Get minister

6. Choose reception venue

7. Make guest list

8. Choose maid of honor

9. Choose best man

10. Register for gifts

11. Arrange for engagement party

12. Buy engagement ring

13. Buy wedding rings

14. Buy wedding dress

15. Choose maid of honor dress

16. Order wedding cake

17. Hire caterer

18. Hire band for reception

19. Order flowers for ceremony

20. Buy shoes

21. Plan rehearsal dinner

22. Invites to rehearsal dinner

23. Hire musicians for ceremony

24. Decide on dress code

25. Get marriage license

26. Hire videographer

27. Hire photographer

28. Order table flowers

29. Order bouquets

30. Order boutonnieres for men

31. Order nosegays for women

32. Order invitations

33. Decide on wine selection

34. Postage for invitations

35. Choose hairstyle and makeup

36. Buy gifts for attendants

37. Buy thank-you notes

38. Announce wedding in newspaper

39. Buy headpiece

40. Buy traveler's checks for honeymoon

41. Apply for visas

42. Get shots and vaccinations

43. Order tent if necessary

44. Order chairs/tables if necessary

45. Make budget

46. Divide expenses

47. Make table-seating charts

48. Choose bridesmaid dress

49. Decide on menu

50. Decide on hors d'oeuvres

51. Decide on dinner-service style

52. Decide on staff-guest ratio

53. Decide seated or buffet

54. Reserve vegetarian meals

55. Reserve band/photographer/videographer meals

56. Make photo list

57. Choose hotel for wedding night

58. Hire limo for church-reception transport

59. Buy guest book for reception

60. Find hotel for out-of-towners

61. Decide on liquor selection

62. Hire bartenders

63. Verify wheelchair accessibility

64. Choose processional music

65. Choose recessional music

66. Choose cocktail music

67. Choose reception music

68. Choose ceremony readings

69. Prepare birdseed instead of rice

70. Schedule manicure/pedicure/wax