Abandon all hope ye who enter here

I just came home to a giant FedEx box containing my bridesmaid’s dress for my cousin’s wedding this summer. According to the tag, its official color is Victorian Lilac, and it has spaghetti straps and lots of beading and some sort of long gauzy scarf-thing that perhaps I’m supposed to wear in my hair Rhoda-style; I'm not entirely clear. This wedding will take place in Texas in July, and the groom is a fireman named Buster who proposed while reading from the bible on the back of a firetruck. Word on the street is that Buster is intent on making his own groom’s cake, and went out and bought special frosting accoutrements, and has been practicing since January by making little cakes and then lovingly icing them with the words “Practice Cake.”

As much as I love and adore this side of my family, and as truly excited as I am at the prospect of having a Buster-in-law, this dress just screams updo, and I’m afraid the only way I’m going to make it through this wedding is with my trusty sidekick strapped to my thigh the entire weekend. Or perhaps a tattooed date.