Wedding bells

No, not mine. My friend Dr. Eye married The Chef on Saturday, and they kindly asked me to be a bridesmaid. So off to LA I went. It was a gorgeous wedding - held in Palos Verdes, which is a spit of land that hovers over the L.A. harbor and is bathed with breezes off of the Pacific. The bride looked regal and beautiful, the groom was dashing in his tux, and both were deliriously happy.

The only sad note was that a member of the bride's family was struck ill the week before the wedding. But we're hoping for the best.

And I'm glad that Dr. Eye had a lovely wedding - she deserves it. I've known her since we were five. While I was home this weekend, my mom dug out blackmail pictures of us from when we were in elementary school. They weren't so bad for her - Dr. Eye always had a cute little bow in her hair - but I had an ill thought-out perm that gave me an extremely unflattering afro. Despite my prolonged awkward years, we've always been close and even managed to arrange things so we'd be roommates in college. While we haven't lived in the same time zone for going on nine years now, thanks to the glory of the internet and my semi-annual visits to my parents' house in our hometown, we've been able to keep in touch. She's one of those people who you can see maybe twice a year and pick up immediately where you left off. It's nice to watch your friends grow up.

Also memorable this weekend was introducing The Texan to my family. He flew out to LA so that they could put a name with the face. All went swimmingly - everyone was trying to be friendly and accomodating - and The Texan endeared himself to my dad by being able to talk photography and to my mom by enjoying her cooking. It worked...I think a little TOO well. While we were running errands in my dad's car on Friday, my dad told The Texan that he could smoke in it. Now, I don't smoke, but you can be damn well sure that if I did, I would not be allowed to bring an ash in the car, much less a lit cigarette.

Oh, and allow me to be slightly bitter about the fucked up bridal industry for a moment. What a scam the whole thing is. I ordered the bridesmaid dress (which was quite pretty - cherry red, long flowing skirt, crystal beads on the waist, V neckline) off of the manufacturer's website, asking for the size that they recommended for someone with my measurements. Of course, I got to LA two days before the wedding and found out that I could not zip the #%!%!# thing up. Luckily, I found a tailor that was able to add some fabric in the back. She did a good job, but it was an extra $75 that I shouldn't have had to pay. Ah well.

And it took FOUR people to figure out how to configure the convertible bra so that I could have a back low enough that it wouldn't show any straps when I wore my dress. This included two store employees who theoretically should know these things. Didn't realize that I would need a degree in engineering to wear a bra.