[Kitsa]

I've had to be a "sport" at so many weddings that I believe the bridezilla phenomenon is largely based in fact. I think women just get entranced by the attention and it gets ugly.

I was a bridesmaid in one wedding that was 8 hours from where I lived. Because of work, the fact that I can't drive, and the fact that it was 8 hours away, I couldn't go do all of the normal bridesmaid-y things, and I thought the bride understood that. She's a reasonable enough person. But she was irritated that I couldn't come in to be fitted for the rental dress, even though I sent my measurements and size.

When I arrived the day before the wedding, all of the bridesmaids had their dresses but me. Twenty minutes before go time, I had decided to sit things out. However, the groom's mother came screeching into the driveway with a last minute gown for me. Only problem was that it was about 10 sizes too big (not exaggerating). It was damn near a circus tent.

We tried to figure out how to make it work. I tried bunching it up and pinching it at my sides, but the top kept sliding down. We didn't have enough safety pins to get the job done. Finally two people stretched the side-flaps out, crisscrossed them at the back, and duct-taped me into the dress. Then I had a big plaster of duct tape on my back, so someone snatched a white polyester tablecloth off a reception table and gave it to me to wear as a shawl. And no one else had a tablecloth-shawl, so I didn't match the other bridesmaids, and that irritated the bride. But what was I going to do?

I was partway through the ceremony when I felt the duct tape starting to let go (even duct tape is powerless against scotchguarded polyester crepe) and I had to clamp my arms to my sides to keep the dress on. I look constipated in all the wedding photos.

The bride wanted us to go straight to the reception in our wedding attire after the photos, so I went wrapped in a tablecloth and trailing strips of duct tape. And then she was mad that I didn't dance.

And to this day I have the vague suspicion that I went down in history as "the uncooperative one" because I didn't go in for the fitting.