by Jen Glantz
Sincerely,
Bridesmaid in Waiting
Dear Bridesmaid in Waiting,
Growing up, I went to a Jewish day school, and when I turned thirteen, I found myself at a bar or bat mitzvah every single weekend. In just one school year, I danced the hora and ate a slice of challah bread at over sixty of them. Some Saturdays, I was being herded off to as many as two or three of them in the same night.
But I remember, during that time, people would keep a list of who gave what and who went to which bar and bat mitzvah. That way, after it was your turn with the Torah, you knew how much to give as a gift for all the other parties you attended. Everything was equal. If someone showed up at your bat mitzvah, you went to theirs, no matter what, even if you had strep throat, tickets to a Backstreet Boys concert, or another friend’s party that same weekend.
That never sounded right to me, and thankfully, my parents didn’t make me operate that way. But a lot of people did. It was safe, and it made sense. It kept you away from any added drama that was already tagged onto a highly emotional event and future emotional baggage that would haunt you if they gave you more money for a gift than you gave to them.
But here’s the thing you don’t realize when you’re thirteen, when you think you have to follow these kinds of rules in order to keep the peace with the people surrounding you during this time in your life. Your bar or bat mitzvah is your special day—no one else’s. If you don’t want to attend someone’s party because they’re rude to you and threw a slice of cucumber at your head at lunch last month, and you know they invited you to their bat mitzvah only because their parents made them, then you shouldn’t attend.
The same thing applies to us grown-ups. Brides ask friends and family members to stand by their side and be their bridesmaids for different, far-reaching, and sometimes not so obvious personal reasons. Those reasons, however, should never be copied or reciprocated. Because if they are, by the time you get hitched, you might end up with fifteen bridesmaids.
So, if you feel that you should be a bridesmaid for this bride, at this very moment in your life, then say yes. When your big day arrives, you can pick and choose who you want standing by your side, even if it’s just one or two very lucky friends.
Dear Jen,
I recently got engaged, and I’m trying to throw together a list of people I would like to invite to my wedding. So far, my fiancé and I have jotted down quite a long roster of family members, close friends, and people our parents would like to have in the room for our special day. Now we are up to the part where we’re deciding if we should invite people from our workplace. My husband works for a larger company (there’s close to a thousand employees). He’s only going to invite two or three guys he’s friends with. I, however, work for a start-up, a company of just fifteen people. I know everyone I work with, and of course, there are some I’m friendlier with than others. But if I invite seven of them, the other eight will feel left out. Am I allowed to pick and choose who I would like to invite? Should I just not invite any of them on account of not wanting anyone to feel left out?
Sincerely,
Invite Only
Dear Invite Only,
Whenever I go to the grocery store, I make a list of the things I want to buy. But once I get there, I toss so many things that aren’t on the list into my basket, which forces me to go back to the front of the store and get a regular-sized cart with wheels. I justify those items too. Like, if I’m buying a loaf of whole wheat bread, then of course, I need to buy peanut butter and jelly, cheese and turkey, and even some I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. But when I go to the register to check out and the sales clerk is scanning my impulse buys and I’m watching my bill climb to some astronomical number, I think to myself, Do I really need to take all of these things home and let them expire in the back of my fridge or on the top shelf of my pantry?
I’m not trying to compare your guests to bottles of pickles and rolls of cookie dough, or any supermarket food for that matter. But it can be tempting to add, add, add people to your wedding guest list because you feel like you need to. Because you feel like, if you don’t, you might make someone upset. There’s no way around this. We live in a world where we have a whole lot of acquaintances, thanks to Facebook and our pals on Twitter, and very few darling dear close friends. Do yourself a favor, okay? Make a giant list of all the people you would ever think of inviting and put your close friends at the top of that list. Add a giant star next to their names.
What should you do with everyone else on that list? Close your eyes. Imagine your wedding day. Taste the freshly cooked salmon, feel the calluses forming on your feet as you pound the dance floor. Feel yourself kissing your husband after you exchange your passionate and heart-throbbing I dos. See yourself posing for pictures beside the people who raised you and stuck by your side all these years. Keep your eyes closed even longer. Now imagine who’s there. Who’s beside you? Who are the people you’re pulling in tightly, hugging, thanking, and dancing with throughout the night?
Those are the people you should invite.
Dear Jen,
Our wedding was almost one year ago. We finished writing and sending out thank-you notes to our guests just one month after the wedding. While we were handwriting those, we noticed that quite a few people, I would say 18 out of 112 guests, did not send or give us a wedding gift. We started wondering if maybe we lost their check at the wedding or they shipped our gift to the wrong address. Should we say something to those eight people? If so, how do we put it nicely without sounding angry? Without saying, “Hey you! Where’s our gift?”
Sincerely,
The Party Is Over
Dear The Party Is Over,
I always get awkward when the conversation turns toward money. Like, on a first date, when the check comes, I cannot just sit there and pretend that I don’t see it. I can’t just twirl the split ends of my hair or fumble around in my purse and wait for the guy to say, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ve got this.” I can’t even mouth a cohesive set of words that would indicate that I think we should just go dutch and split the whole thing.
So most of the time, I don’t say anything. I pull out every single dollar, credit card, and restaurant coupon that I have and throw it on top of the table like a pile of poker chips, as if to say, “I’m all in, dealer!”
Some people aren’t this way at all, and I desperately admire them. Some people have no problem coming up to you at an event and saying, “Hey, you owe me $10 for your share of the spinach dip.” Or remind you six months after a concert that you need to send them a check for the $50 they spotted you for the ticket.
No matter what kind of person you are, there’s some extra gunk spread out on top of this particular situation because we’re talking about your wedding here. Not only that, but you threw the party of a lifetime, of your lifetime, for these guests. And that party costs money. Lots and lots and lots of money.
Some couples use the money they receive on their wedding day as a way to pay the vendors for their services. And some couples use it for their honeymoon, a down payment on their first house, or even for a new wardrobe.
Either way, as a couple, you can do what you want with the money. They’re your guests’ gifts to you.
Which brings me to the gigantic, bright-orange elephant dancing to a Kesha song in the middle of the room. Just because you invited someone to your wedding, paid for them to be there, provided the live music for them to boogie down to, and served them a delicious piece of pork tenderloin, do they have to give you anything?
The answer is no.
It’s annoying. It’s awkward. It makes you feel like you want to call them up and really stick it to them. Say something quick and blasé like, “Did you enjoy salsa dancing to that Gloria Estefan song? How did you like the mint chocolate chip cheesecake we had for dessert? Oh you liked it? Great. Where the heck is our gift?”
Sure, giving a gift is the right thing to do, and as you’ve seen, most people will do i
t. But not everybody does. Not everyone feels as though they should.
Sometimes people can’t afford to, forget to, don’t want to, don’t find the need to, or simply just don’t care to.
The rule says people have one year to give you a gift. Chances are, if they haven’t sent anything within six months, it’s not going to happen—unless you do want to do something about it. So the question is, do you?
Dear Jen,
I don’t like to go to weddings anymore. The first few were a blast because my friends and I were fresh out of college and single. We’d toast to our newly married friend and roll our eyes because, let’s face it, we felt too young to even know what kind of career we wanted to spend the rest of our lives doing, let alone what kind of retirement fund we should opt in for or who we’d like to marry. But then, as if it happened all of a sudden, my friends started getting engaged left and right. It felt like we all started running the New York Marathon together, except when I slowed down at mile number 5 to grab a cup of water from the sidelines, they sprinted forward without me. Here’s the problem: my good friend just got engaged, and when she called to tell me she wants me to be a bridesmaid, I said something like, “If by bridesmaid you mean slow-dance with your cousin all night or flirt with the only other single person there who’s probably from Mars, then, no thanks.” What I really meant to say was, “Of course.” But I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know if I can stomach it.
Sincerely,
You Know Her . . . The Single One
Dear You Know Her . . . The Single One,
Halfway through the last wedding I went to, somewhere in between galloping around like a horse to “Gangnam Style” and doing the electric slide, Beyoncé came on the speakers and repeated this: All my single ladies . . . All my single ladies, which became the perfect (and most overused) way for the DJ to round up the nonmarried ladies on the dance floor for the traditional bouquet toss.
By now, it’s a natural instinct for me. Without even thinking, when I hear that song go on at a wedding, I put down my cheesecake and make my way over to the dance floor.
I’m not a hopeless romantic; I’m just good at following directions.
I’m also good at minimizing embarrassment, and I know, from experience, that it’s less embarrassing to tiptoe onto the dance floor and compete with other eligible women for a flower arrangement tied with a ribbon than hide underneath the table and have the bride get on the microphone and shriek, “Where’s Jen! OMG we can’t start this until someone finds Jen!”
Women take the bouquet toss as seriously as they do a semiannual sale at Bloomingdale’s. I was once elbowed so hard in the diaphragm, I couldn’t breathe for a couple of minutes afterward. I’ve been tripped, knocked in the face, bitten, and one time, just one time, bribed to get the heck out of the way.
One time, I caught it and a girl ripped it out of my hands after kicking me in the shin with her fake Louboutin pumps. I knew they were fake because she hit me so hard that the paint from the red bottom came off and left a mark on my leg. I don’t think a shoe that costs $1,500 would come apart so easily from kicking the side of a nonmuscular calf.
So I’ve learned to keep to myself out there. To stand in the back and run in the opposite direction of everyone else when the bouquet goes up in the air (which is typically toward the bar). That way, I’ll be far away from the danger zone, and when the girl with the battered tulips rises from the bottom of the pile, we’ll all just clap and go back to booty-dancing to the Ying Yang Twins and put our competitive monster selves away.
But one time, when the DJ made the call, it was just one other person and me.
Remember when you used to play the game, Duck, Duck, Goose in kindergarten and the person who wasn’t quick enough and got tagged had to sit in the middle of the circle while people screamed “mush, mush, mush”? Well, that’s exactly how it felt to be surrounded by 345 married people as I stood beside just one other person, underneath a giant artificial spotlight, in the dead center of a cold dance floor.
I could hear people say things like, “Why are they still single?” and, “Oh my, I feel so bad for them.” One elderly lady shouted across the table to her husband, “Boy, do I have a grandson who’d be interested in that!”
The other girl beside me had a serious boyfriend, and when faced with the risk of limping around for the next seven days, she whispered to me and said, “Mind if I get this one?” I nodded my head and moved way, way out of the way.
Being single in a group of married, engaged, or seriously dating people is never a whole lot of fun. It just isn’t. It’s not fun at dinner or a movie or anytime you’re forced to be the one who doesn’t have someone to turn to and blow kisses at or call “Babe.”
It sucks on a Friday night when you want to go out, but all of your friends are too busy at a husband’s work event, or watching Shark Tank on the couch, or telling you they no longer have the energy to dance until 4:00 a.m. with a group of sweaty strangers.
But, my sweet dear, let me tell you, it especially sucks at weddings.
The friends who used to say “I do” to Jägerbomb shot after Jägerbomb shot after Jägerbomb shot and laugh endlessly at the idea of spending the rest of their lives on the couch with the same guy, are going to say “I dos” of a different kind.
But, hey, it’s not because they look down on you or don’t love you or want to make you feel so utterly embarrassed you’d rather hide under the table with bread crumbs and bits of romaine lettuce. I think they’re hoping that you’ll one day feel the same magical, googly-eyed things they felt when they found love, even if you’re not in the mood or ready or interested yet.
Isn’t that what we do when we love someone?
We ignore what they want and do exactly what we think is best for them. Even if we’re wrong, even if we go a step too far, even if we have no idea what we’re doing. Love makes us crazy, my sweet dear. It does.
So zip up that bridesmaid dress, put on the boldest-colored lipstick you have in your makeup bag, drink a cup of green tea (it’ll calm you down), and go.
Go to the wedding and dance with your imaginary boyfriend during the slow songs and exchange Facebook info with the souls beside you at table 10 who you’ll probably never see again, and when the bride whispers that she has someone dashing for you to meet, smile, shake his hand, and know, just know, that half the people there, the ones taking care of their drunk-by-9:00-p.m. husbands, are envying you just a little bit. Your choices, your freedom, your life.
You still have the magic and the googly-eyed first moments of love coming your way. So when that bouquet is flying in the air, stick your arms out and grab it, as if there’s a full floor of people who want it as well.
Just like I know you can.
All my love,
Jen Glantz
chapter twenty
Eggs Sunny-Side Frozen
My favorite place to hide out after “getting lucky” on a date—which means I caught the guy picking his nose with the same hand he was using to eat our shared platter of chips and dip—is the grocery store. There’s good lighting there, and it smells nice. Plus, they usually have free samples of some kind of crockpot creation served on saltines and minicups of instant coffee near the pastry aisle. It’s as if they know that my postdate, unlucky-in-love self needs a late-night, carb-loaded, caffeine-filled pick-me-up.
I’ve learned to go to Costco—which has a plethora of samples—right after a nasty breakup, but for a single bad date, my neighborhood grocery store usually does the trick. It’s enough to help me get my mind off boogers and satisfy my stomach too.
Mmm, the avocados look ripe today. Maybe I’ll pick up a few and make guacamole. Do I even know how to make guacamole? Maybe I’ll whip up a batch of cookies instead. But not from scratch. I’m no blonde Betty Crocker. I’ll get one of those Break ‘n Bake cookie rolls. Kale! I need some kale. Maybe I’ll make a kale smoothie and then kale chips. Wait a minute, what about kale cookies?
I
’m in the middle of my posttraumatic grocery shopping/therapy session, stuffing a strawberry Pop Tart from a half-opened box into my mouth when I feel my phone buzz in my left hand.
Please don’t be Ben the Booger Monster. I shut my eyes tightly and say a prayer near the melons. Please be somebody, anybody, else.
It’s my mom. I let out a sigh of relief, lean against a display of candy apples, and inhale the pure caramel bliss as I answer my phone.
“Maybe you should freeze your eggs,” my mom says the minute I pick up the phone, skipping the small talk.
What an interesting idea, I think, briefly wondering how my mom knows I’m in a grocery store at 9:00 p.m. on a Tuesday before suddenly remembering that moms, like clairvoyants, just seem to know it all.
I wonder if freezing eggs makes them last longer? I’ll definitely have a lot left over after the kale cookies, and I am going to be out of town for four days. This mom of mine, she’s always thinking about how to save me a penny. What a dime she is!
“Okay, good idea. I guess I should also freeze my bread and my bananas too?” I say. I’m on my third Pop Tart and fourth sample of Folgers espresso, so I’m up for anything.
“No, no,” she says impatiently. “I was talking to a guy at the gym today about you and your eggs.”
This is getting a little odd, I think to myself.
“He’s an OB/GYN and mentioned that since you’re twenty-seven and not in a serious relationship, you might want to freeze your eggs.”
Oh. Those eggs. It sinks in almost immediately, like a sudden onset of acid reflux after eating too much tomato sauce, and I understand how wrong I was. Moms aren’t like clairvoyants; they’re like Time Warner Cable representatives, always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
I let out a laugh that’s so maniacal that other shoppers near me drop their bags of whole wheat pasta and run away.