How I Planned Your Wedding by Susan Wiggs

indulge.
    Reminder: tell the groom’s mom what you’re wearing. Only in bad romantic comedies do the moms show up in the same who-wore-it-better gown.
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    CHEAT SHEET
    TOO BLINDED BY REAMS OF WHITE SATIN TO READ
    THE WHOLE CHAPTER? HERE’S YOUR CHEAT SHEET:
I already said it, and I’ll say it again: a big white dress is a big white dress. Remember this when you feel a tug in your gut toward that haute couture gown that will put you in the red.
Go to the upscale bridal salon—but do your due diligence afterward and see if you can find an equally beautiful dress that isn’t overpriced just because your dressing room was the size of a tract mansion.
The most beautiful part of your wedding ensemble will be the girl wearing it.
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6
THE VERY
IMPORTANT PEEPS
    Choosing the attendants, dressing the attendants, putting gratitude before attitude

ELIZABETH
    A s soon as you get engaged, people start peppering you with questions. “Have you chosen a date?” “What does your dress look like?” “What colors are you going to have?” And, possibly the most rife with danger, “Who’s going to be in your wedding party?”
    Brides, I don’t claim to be a wedding expert, but I will give you this one command: when someone asks you who your bridesmaids are (even if the asker is your conjoined twin sister), say, “I’m just so excited about being engaged that I haven’t even thought that far ahead!” Do yourself a huge favor and practice saying this into the mirror, over and over again. “I’m just so excited about being engaged that I haven’t even thought that far ahead!”
    Because, trust me, it will come in handy.
    Now, I was lucky because I ended up having the best bridesmaids I could have asked for. Each girl represented a different part of my life and a different, lasting friendship. Joelle was my cousin, my rock, my unconditional support. Melissa was the childhood best friend, who had seen me through my most awkward adolescent years, my first kiss and my first heartbreak. Lucy was my college roommate, who had talked me down from the ledge of undergrad dating. Molly was my best friend, the caring, unjudgmental soul who loved me fiercely. Lindsey, another friend, kept me grounded, colluding with me in my neurotic need to plan and organize all our friends’ lives. Aubrey, my stylish andalso-engaged friend, didn’t mind if I called her at 3:00 a.m. to bitch about a fight I’d had with my mom over our wedding budget. They were all there for me on my wedding day as nobody else could have been, and I love each of them like the sisters I never had (not that I’m bitter about being an only child or anything, MOMMY).
    That said, I was a total klutz about choosing my bridesmaids. Almost immediately after Dave said, “Will you?” and I said, “Yes.” See, two days after Dave and I got engaged, we met my parents for brunch to celebrate and show off the new rock gracing my finger. And at that brunch, like any doting mother of a recently engaged gal, my mom asked me who I would have in my wedding party.
    Well, okay, she didn’t exactly ask.
    Of the many skills she possesses, none are so potent as her uncanny ability to sound like she’s making a request when in actuality she’s issuing a command. Woe be to the maiden who attempts to defy her orders, as I did that sunny spring morning.
    “So I’m assuming your girl cousins will be your bridesmaids, right? You know, blood is thicker than water. The only woman I speak to on a regular basis from my childhood is my sister, and since you don’t have sisters, cousins are your next option. Right?”
    See how she did that? It’s verrrrry tricky: first, she states the command as an assumption she has already made, because, honestly, who could even think of any other possibilities? But then she softens the assumption by tacking on a very gentle “…right?” Then, before you can respond, she steamrolls further ahead with an argument that she’s obviously already