I enjoy Facebook for many reasons, but those reasons do not include certain pictures that get posted with political or inflammatory messages on them and pictures that are prefaced with “Share If You…” Share if you love your mom! Share if you love your kids! Share if you have a dog! Share if you hate cancer! Whoops, I didn’t share. Guess I hate my mother. (I don’t hate my mother. Hi Mom!).
However, on occasion a picture will be shared that I think summarizes a certain situation up admirably.
One of the reasons I do like Facebook is that my twenty year high school reunion is coming up and I already pretty much know what my graduating class has been up to, which will cut down on awkward “So…what have you been doing these past two decades?” conversations. A number of people have said things along the lines of I can’t believe it’s been twenty years! to which I strongly disagree. It feels more like fifty years since I was in high school. I have only to look at photos from my high school graduation to feel that it was a lifetime ago: my shiny red off-the-shoulder dress with satin clutch and shoes dyed to match, ringleted hair in a fancy updo, and the piece de resistance – a white rose corsage on my wrist. My high school boyfriend was wearing a tuxedo with a red bow tie that matched my dress, for the love of god. I wouldn’t relive those years for anything, and not just because everyone wore belted, high waisted pants with baggy t-shirts tucked into them.
Speaking of exes, I don’t know about you but I never have the urge to get in touch with any of them. I was at a wedding once where the bride prided herself on maintaining friendships with all her ex-boyfriends, and so there was not one, not two, but SIX ex-boyfriends in attendance. There was also an open mike at the reception which was a terrible error in judgement. One of those exes got up and started a long and inebriated ramble about how much he loved hitting that (I’m paraphrasing here) and how jealous he was when she was with a man who was not the groom, but who was another ex-boyfriend, seated at table 12. It was more awkward even than the wedding I attended where the brother of the groom, who was also the best man, gave a thirty-five minute drunken speech about his brother that started with their childhood dream of becoming Stampede wrestlers and ended with the groom being so drunk that he vomited after offending every woman in a bar with his interpretive dance to the “Thong Song”.
You know, the last giveaway I did was so fun, I think I might just do another. To enter, leave a comment either telling me a funny wedding story OR what you wore to your high school graduation. Or both! I’ll do a draw on Monday April 22 (EARTH DAY! Maybe the prize will be Earth Day related! Or maybe not…)
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In case you haven’t already heard, I’ve got an exciting new gig over at Yummy Mummy Club! I’m the new food blogger, and I will be putting the yum in Yummy Mummy with tons of recipes for the whole family to enjoy. So, check it out, pretty please, and maybe subscribe to my feed over there? I’m the Meatless Mummy Con Carne, so I’m going to spill all my secrets on how I cook vegetarian meals and adapt them for those meat-loving boys of mine. I’d be ever so grateful if you took a look – maybe you’ll find some recipes that you can enjoy as well. xoxo
I wore a Emerald green (and that colour is surprisingly back in fashion) dress. It was a consignment bridesmaids dress. Puffed sleeves, A peekaboo back (scandalous) and a BIG skirt. (thankfully not back in fashion). And yes, my shoes were dyed to match and my parents bought my wrist corsage as I was dateless. So pathetic it is NOW funny.
Best wedding story? How about the one where a NOT DRUNK uncle talked about how FAT the bride was and how they thought she would NEVER get married. She was 19.
OPEN MIKES ARE ALWAYS A BAD IDEA, even without booze.
At that wedding the caterer was almost TWO HOURS LATE and then the chicken dinner was STONE COLD.
Funny now, not so much at the time.
This will blow your mind…
Not only am I good friends with two of my exes from high school, we stayed with one of them when we went on our “honeymoon” to Germany, and he’s coming to visit for a week at the end of the month. (And yes, he was at our wedding. He flew over the week before and helped us paint our new house prior to moving in. Because he’s a sweetheart.)
The other one lives in Japan with his wife & daughters, we’re still on very good terms, and he reads & comments on my blog. You know him as “ex-ex-alien”.
I don’t have a t-shirt that reads “I LOVE ALL THE GUYS I USED TO BONE”, or anything, but the ones that treated me right and were just decent people I still like to call my friends. So, you know, inviting exes to your wedding is not unheard of. Although if my German ex had gotten up at the reception and professed his love for me, that would have been AWKWARD AND HORRIBLE.
OK! Funny wedding story!
Years ago, one of my many drunken uncles – drunkles – married into a super-conservative Baptist family. Everyone on the groom’s side knew that the bride was eight weeks pregnant on the wedding day. NO ONE on the bride’s side did, because they would have Freaked The Fuck Out. The ceremony was long and boring but went without a hitch. Then came the reception. The bride’s father – also the minister who married them, BTW – got up to give his speech. “We must all remember” he intoned solemnly, “that in every successful marriage there are three people: the bride, the groom, and Jesus Christ.” My grandmother, who is a little hard of hearing and even harder of listening, looked confused and stage-whispered AT TOP VOLUME “three people? BUT I THOUGHT WE WEREN’T TELLING THEM ABOUT THE BABY!”
I cannot possibly convey what happened next, I’m not that good a writer. I’ll just let you imagine it.
Being raised strict Baptist, I CAN TOTALLY imagine what happened next.
And am giggling like mad thinking about it.
AHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Awesome.
Also, I LOVE ALL THE GUYS I USED TO BONE. Brilliant.
I rarely do those share things. They tend to be ridiculous.
And it seems like everyone is photographed with a sign now. That’s getting annoying too.
Your segue from Thong Song story to “giveaway? Sure!” made me spit out my food. HUH-LARIOUS.
I think I know where most of my exes are but only one attended my wedding, and only because he lived in the neighbourhood where we got married. And I didn’t have speeches at my wedding, but he pretty much pouted the whole time, so.
My high school graduation was quite an affair. The school refused to end its tradition of having a Grad Draw where people were paired by drawing names out of a hat! And you couldn’t pick your own date! So instead of going with the ONLY GUY AT MY SCHOOL WHO WAS TALLER THAN ME, who had already said we should go together, I had to go with Ed, who was basically a 50 year old in a 17 year old body. He bought himself an olive green Hugo Boss suit to wear (why rent a tux when you can have a suit for life!) and instead of splitting a limo with our mutual friends, we went in Ed’s own BMW (his parents gave it to him when they bought a new one). In protest, I wore 3 inch heels with my tasteful black dress, putting me at 6’1″ and a good four inches taller than Ed.
I am not Facebook friends with Ed.
So happy for your yummy mummy gig and hope you have a splendid weekend..but if you could just go ahead..and come in on Sunday…for some cake..yeaaahhhh.
My highschool graduation dress was actually not that bad..the baggy mens jeans I wore to school everyday tucked in at the waist that I would pull up past the big belt paired with my fake Doc’s and white tshirt with a black and white picture of a couple on the front with the rose colored in red was much more tragic..lol…I actually spent the majority of my cadet camp summer camp money to have my dress custom made at a tailor for like 400$ back then..it was one of a kind..My mom and I found the pattern of a nice wedding dress, mermaid style, off the shoulder..( I was ahead of my time! LOL) had it made in a plum colored satin and because I was tall we had it tailored to fall to the floor even when I wore my 4inch mary jane heels that were also ahead of their time mostly because they did not consist of a giant square heel that was the ohh so fashionable style of 1990s…If I ever drop 70lbs ( *sigh)..I would pull it out of my closet and wear it again if I had the chance..ohhh but my hair was tragic that day..my tightly curled ringlets didn’t last the drive to the reception hall at the Queen E hotel downtown Montreal..and I spent the night with fuzzy messed up hair loll..and I could barely walk in my heels loll
Dammit! The other stories are so good!
I didn’t go with to my graduation. i don’t remember why, except I was just so DONE with high school so instead Bill and I sat around and drank in his parent’s basement. Ah, happy teenage memories!
My middle brother gave a speech at my wedding about how the two of us used to get bored waiting for the bus while we were kids and that would lead to the two of us getting into fights and THAT would lead to the two of us attempting to crack each other’s skulls open with our lunch boxes. Mine used to always break, he told everyone, because they were flimsy girl lunch boxes, while his was metal and sturdy. Then he gave me and Bill a nice sturdy metal lunch box. “I hope Beck doesn’t try anything with this,” he told Bill. “You’re a nice guy.”
He packed a lunch in it, too. V. nice.
I didn’t really like my prom dress. My mom wouldn’t let me have the one I wanted. She said it was to sexy. Instead she enlisted my uncle and grandma to make me one. They adjusted a wedding dress pattern to make it uber conservative. They convinced me a bubble gum type purple would be cute. Since I felt a little silly already I got pink pumps and a pink boa to match it.
Justine, you’re the winner of my giveaway! Message me with address details and I will put your prize in the mail!
My graduation dress was pretty simple – strapless, fitted bodice, uncrazy skirt, in a subdued pink that I kind of shake my head at now but it was positively conservative at the time. For the semi-formal the year before my mother inexplicably let me get this skin-tight black slinky mermaidy dress, and My hair was pulled up to the side and crimped. I look kind of hot in the pictures, in a sort of frightening way, like I might drown and eat my date instead of just making out with him.
I did read an article a few years ago about how it can be very dangerous to look for your ex-boyfriends online, because unresolved feelings and the ability to connect easily in the digital age can be threatening to your marriage. What I took from that was I COULD GOOGLE MY EX-BOYFRIEND. Happily, my marriage is still intact. I did invite one sort-of-ex to my wedding, because we were on good terms and he was interestingly quirky and intellectual and we had cool conversations, but he didn’t show up because he suddenly decided he was too tormented by the idea of watching me marry someone else, which my mother said was probably for the best because he was Polish and if he’d shown up and my grandparents had gotten hold of him they would have insisted I marry him instead.
At one of Matt’s family’s weddings, his drunken grandfather got up and told a garbled joke about golfing and owls that ended with ‘couldn’t fuck worth a hoot or hoot worth a fuck’.
Oh fine, I went to a Catholic, all-girls, private HS. We were required to wear white, tea-length dresses to our graduation. And people wonder why I wanted to get the hell away from HS as soon as I possibly could 😉
I am not friends with any of my exs for two reasons: (1) I moved 3,000 miles away from where I went to HS and college 20 years ago and don’t Facebook and (2) the two guys I dated where I live now before I met husband may moons ago were . . . how shall I put this politely? Guys I wanted to . . . date, not guys I wanted to marry. I was not at all interested in any kind of long term relationship with either of them at the time and I’m still not interested 😉
My friend who was driving me to the church for my wedding got pulled over for speeding. The state trooper thought it would be bad luck to give her a ticket, so he sent us on our way. We were so cheerful about it, he started laughing.
But funnier was the dress I wore to my friend’s wedding. As bridesmaid dresses go, it wasn’t bad. It was black and white strapless A-line. Long. When I got it, in order for it to fit my hips, it was HUUUUUUGE in the chest. Had to have it taken in. So I did. But when I got it back, even though I had lost another five or ten pounds, it was super duper tight. Think sausage. The upside was that I didn’t need to wear any foundation garments. And it gave me great cleavage. The wedding reception was at a hotel where we were staying. So all I needed was my room key. But I wanted a camera too. I had a little point and shoot. I tucked the camera and my room key into my cleavage. I would whip out the camera to take some photos, and then tuck it back in. I had had enough to drink that it didn’t seem ridiculous to me.
I do not facebook under my real name (meaning my pre-marriage name) because I want absolutely NOTHING to do with ex boyfriends. This says a great deal about my ability to hold a grudge AND my chronic bad taste in men. Except for my husband.
I don’t care what any of you say: my high school grad dress was and IS amazing!
My grad dress: Lilac, fitted corset bodice with silver embroidery (leaves and flowers), and a full princess skirt of lilac tulle with SPARKLES on it. Needless to say, when you look at grad photos from 1998-2001, my Jessica McClintock grad dress makes an appearance in several different colours! I wanted a strapless dress, but had to give that up when it became obvious that my minuscule chest would in no way support a dress (a fact that the saleslady gleefully pointed out to me, several times- “Here, I’ll hold the top up, since IT WON’T STAY UP ON IT’S OWN”).
I am friends with 2 of my 5 exes. Two of the three that I’m not friends with make me sad (I know we’re not friends because I treated him poorly and hurt him so badly…in both cases). The other one, I hope to run into someday…with a Buick. I ended up standing next to him at a red light, waiting to cross the street downtown one day, and it was all I could do to not push him into traffic. No love lost there…money and innocence and hope and trust lost, yes…but no love.
The wedding I attended with a condom-filled pinata at the reception springs to mind….
CONGRATULATIONS on your new gig! So exciting!!!
I can’t top those stories, but congrats your your new gig.
LisaDay