Getting wedding guest ready is more stressful than the Leaving Cert

Getting ready for a wedding is one of the most stressful experiences life can throw at you.

What is it about a wedding that makes us women lose the plot? Particularly, when it isn’t even our own nuptials. In the space of five days, I have been bleached, plucked and prodded like a chicken ready for a roast. All in the name of beauty.

I have had my boobs shifted and lifted while searching for the perfect bra, and I have done my fair share of scrubbing my skin raw to avoid a tiger stripe tan disaster. I got a pedicure, yet I despise feet. The whole experience was extremely uncomfortable and one of my toes kept twitching which made red polish splash on my toe and not my nail. Needless to say, the nail technician was not impressed.

I dyed my hair, perched on the hairdresser’s chair and realised I was a mirror image of Eminem. The witchery in the hair salon mirror is otherworldy and self-esteem can take quite a downward dip.

The dress, surprisingly, was easy to find. Totally by chance, I stumbled upon it as I looked for nothing in particular. Supporting the old adage that if you look for something, you will come home with socks and a new toothbrush from Penneys and not the dress. I have tried it on so many times that I have ended up hating it. A profound epiphany of unflattering angles I will find myself in has come before me and I have resolved that I will have to burn the dress.

What impulse buying devil possessed my frontal lobe to make me buy this monstrosity?

All planned

You see, I had it all planned in my head. The dress, shoes, and jewellery. The shoes are slip-on gold platforms. I have looked at them so much that they have begun to remind me specifically of ABBA.  I can’t possibly adorn these at the wedding because everyone will look at me and think that I have gone mad on some Mama Mia hallucinogens. Two glasses of champagne and I will be up on the pulpit, unfearing God and murdering a version of Dancing Queen. Not one person in the congregation deserves that, no matter what sins they have committed.

My earrings are Pat Butcher inspired and divine. However, my paranoia once again has taken over as my mother asked if I was in the process of stretching my earlobes. In the most kind-hearted sense my mother means that they look heavy on my ears, but my wedding #OOTD jitters only hear echoes in a hidden meaning cave.

Do it for love

I am horrifically short-sighted and wear contacts almost every day, except in the shower. And in the shower, I shave. As you can imagine, short-sightedness and shaving do not sync. Unquestionably, I will miss most of the hair and finish with a landing strip down one side but we can only try our best. I will contort my body into gymnastic-like positions on the bath to make sure every inch of me is covered in the brown liquid that makes us all look like Grecian Goddesses.

And I will pray like a farmer for sun, just as he asks for dry weather for silage, I pray for it to avoid a brown puddle falling at my feet.

This process and re-run will happen once more before the month is out and I will think the same thoughts and do the same things. So why must we put ourselves through this unnecessary stress? Well, we do it for our friends, our family, the laughter, the overly loud band, and the bad DJ.

We will eat and drink too much and secretly hope to not receive another invitation for two years.

But, underneath it all, we love it.

So give me a drink, pass me a microphone and let me up on that pulpit.

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