Thursday, May 7, 2009

Running of the Brides 2009

Once I got around to starting this blog I KNEW that this would be one of my first entries. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear about brutally enraged brides thrashing and tearing through designer gowns to find one of their dreams? Nah—only kidding. It was much more tame with only minimal attitude and confrontation than expected.

April 3rd, 2009
Rockville, MD
Filene’s Basement

I should first start off by saying I would ONLY do this for my sister—and the fact that I was so desperate to find her indecisive soul a perfect dress so we could stop looking. (Newsflash: Still haven’t found a dress…5 months left!) She rounded up a troupe of me, mom, her fiance’s mom and cousin, and my conveniently located friend Alexandra to dodge the crowds and black eyes and hoard dresses in a corner to eventually barter for better. All festooned in UVA orange we arrived to find too many other psychotic brides in line…at 6:30am! Music was playing, brides were screaming and chanting, and I was obnoxiously excited and ready to deck some brides so early in the morning (could have been the three cups of coffee).

When the doors opened, the mad dash to the racks commenced. And once Team UVA (um, us!) finally reached the top of the escalators, the racks were empty. Apparently the rack-clearing record is some 30 seconds or so! Disappointed? Yes. Hopeful? Of course. Given up? NO!

The amusing thing about Running of the Brides is everyone is so evil at first. And you know when someone gives me attitude; I’ll feed it right back to them. Again—which is why I find this so funny. The brides and their entourage hoard all the dresses they can grab—not to give to you, but only to exchange with you. Being empty handed, exchanging was a tad impossible. Janet finally came up with one dress and slowly things started multiplying. Perusing around the room, I came across a mountainous pile of dresses all consumed by the first group in line. I mean this was like flippin’ Mt. Everest! So I slowly began convincing the pile monitor to give me a size 2 or 4 in exchange for the size 14 I was holding. The sprawled mound topper (I deemed her as necessary) slid off the pile of dresses and she begrudgingly traded.

Brittany started trying on dresses to find (of course!) nothing that she liked. After about an hour of slicing through bodyguards (yes, someone brought a gigantic man to monitor her collected dresses!) and practically naked women to find her size, our blood sugar was low, the caffeine had worn off, and unwanted, dirty, ripped dresses were barely hanging on the racks.

We had exhausted all corners and bartered with all attitudes, and finally realized her dress was not here. Everyone left surprisingly upbeat and glad we experienced Running of the Brides. I, on the other hand, was praying that Brittany’s indecisiveness was beaten out of her by these brides; and that she would ultimately make a blasted decision on one soon.
Obviously didn’t work and has yet to work. Hey, isn’t that the job of the wedding planner?---to stress?

2 comments:

  1. i can't wait 'til it's your turn and YOU become so indecisive!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh and ps: thanks again for doing this for me! i <3 u

    ReplyDelete