Wedding season is quickly coming upon us, as my friends on Facebook are constantly reminding me.  Of my 700-something Facebook friends, no fewer than 25 of them are going to get married in the very near future.  Or at least I assume it's the very near future as I see a lot of wedding planning going on via my news feed.  Just to say, how difficult must it have been to get your MOH's opinion on a certain flower before the creation of Facebook?  Just a thought.. Anyway, I digress.

I have been a bridesmaid 5 times and a bride once, and I hope to do neither ever again.  Well.....  I take that back.  There are 3 very specific situations in which I will be a bridesmaid again.  #1, if when this particularly wonderful couple decides to get married she wants bridesmaids, I will be ready to go.  #2, if when this amazing friend of mine gets married she wants me to be a bridesmaid, I wouldn't miss it for the world.  And #3, if whomever my little brother marries feels like she needs his sister to be a bridesmaid, I will oblige.  That's it, though, and those friends know exactly who they are.

On to the point..  I have some advice for the girls who are getting married and also for the girls who will be the bridesmaids.  I have been a bridesmaid so many times that I feel qualified enough to give this advice:  Let her go crazy.  Let her force you to all have matching toenails even though nobody would ever notice if one of you had green toenails.  Let her insist that you wear your hair down and straight when it's normally in a high curly pony tail.  It doesn't matter that you haven't seen your hair this way since 7th grade, she's the bride and it is, in fact, her day.  Your entire job is to make her life easier for the duration of her engagement, up until she climbs into that vintage car/limousine/horse-drawn carriage with her brand new husband.

And now, for the brides: Just calm down, let it all happen, and don't go crazy on your bridesmaids.  Everybody's favorite bride is the calm bride.  Yes, it is absolutely your right to flip out about every single little thing, but please don't take it out on your friends.  I actually think that's what your mother is for.  She's prepared to handle your extreme fussiness, your friends are not.  She can tell you that you're being atrocious, your friends cannot.

But seriously, brides, don't go crazy and don't worry about every tiny detail just because it IS your day.  In one wedding I actually saw a bride and her bridesmaid/cousin stop speaking entirely just because the bridesmaid didn't want to wear the same shoes everyone else was wearing.  Remember that you were friends first, and that after the wedding she will return to being your friend.

People ask me all the time about mine and Jason's wedding.  I suppose that's because when you're in a military community, the question "So how did you two meet?" comes up a lot, right after "Where are you from originally?"  (FYI - you have to add the "originally" because people will tell you about their last school or duty station.)  When I tell people about me and Jason, they want to hear about our wedding because I tell them that we decided to get married and then did so only 10 days later.  Yep, I was technically only engaged for 3 days before I got hitched.  Looking back on our wedding, I still love every minute of the day and how we did it.  There was nowhere near the stress that comes with most weddings, and I am so thankful.  I wouldn't change a thing.