I thought this was funny, but poignant. All Mothers of the Groom will relate! Enjoy!--Katherine
I’m
going to a wedding this summer, which means once again I am dealing
with the sleeve problem. You ladies of a certain age know what I am
talking about. There comes a time in your life, even if you have a
personal trainer and are taking your meals in the gym, when the muscles
and skin on your inner upper arms give up. It’s as if they’re saying:
“Oh, the hell with it. Where’s the bar?” They’re just hanging off the
bone, exhausted.
I’m feeling pretty buff these days. I’ve lost 20 pounds (I don’t think I’ve mentioned that for two columns),
I’ve been training for a bike trip and I still cannot find a dress for
an afternoon wedding. The cutest dresses are sleeveless, and I don’t
feel I can wear them unless I get a pair of five-pound weights and do
repetitions three times a day. I envision my shopping list: 1)
sleeveless cocktail dress; 2) weights. This doesn’t seem right.
I
don’t like the sleeveless dresses with the little bolero jackets
either. The chutzpah of this is appalling: We’re going to sell you
something you can wear only if you cover it up. That will be $700. I do
understand how these dresses are supposed to work, though. You wear the
jacket at the ceremony, then you go to the reception and have a few
snorts and toss if off because you have ceased to care.
My
only choice, if I insist on sleeves, seems to be to go to the
mother-of-the-bride favela on the outskirts of the bridal department and
get a long-sleeved garment in navy blue or — shoot me if I ever do this
— lavender. I’m not sure what to call the style of these dresses, but
if you’ve ever seen those things people put over their toasters, you
have a general idea. They might as well have the words “Boring Matron,
Has Not Had Sex in Eight Years” emblazoned in sequins.
The
plus side, I guess, is that at least I am not the mother of the groom,
or, as she is referred to on wedding sites, the MOG. I have had friends
go through this, and it is a whole other kind of hell because they need
to get outfit approval from the bride’s family. Here is how the wedding
planning site The Knot puts it:
“Per general etiquette, the MOB is to buy her wedding day frock first
and then notify the MOG in a friendly, nonthreatening format.”
I
used to think being a bridesmaid was bad, but that is nothing compared
to the abasement of being the mother of a groom. Here’s how her shopping
experience works:
She
sees a dress she loves, she takes a picture, and she sends it to the
mother of the bride. The mother of the bride looks at the dress,
realizes it’s way more sophisticated than the rag she’s picked out for
herself, and texts the mother of the groom:
Gorgeous, but that burnt sienna conflicts with the blackened orange
cocktail napkins we’ll be using for the after-party. Don’t hate me, but
could you possibly try to find something else? I only ask because I know
one day you will want to see your grandchildren.
No
detail of the MOG’s outfit is too small. You might think that in a
$75,000 wedding in which the bride is decked out in 40 yards of tulle,
bearing down on the guests like an 18th-century battleship in full sail,
no one will notice the shoes the groom’s mother is wearing,
particularly because by the time the bride and her mother are through
with her, she will be wearing a navy suit cut like a shoe box. (Navy is
not merely the suggested color for a mother-of-the-groom outfit, in some
Southern states it is law.)
The
MOG may not always hear directly from the MOB on smaller matters of
dress, but, just as in the Gestapo, there is a chain of command. The
mother of the bride will talk to the bride, who will talk to the groom,
who will call his mother. The MOG, who by now is such a nervous wreck
that she’s dissolving 1.5-milligram tablets of Klonopin in her morning
coffee, will sense something is up because her son will be making this
call from a business trip in Dubai.
Hey,
Ma, I got a call from the woman who will decide how often we visit when
you are in the old-people’s home, and she said you haven’t said a word
about your shoes. The wedding is only six months away. No big deal, but
could you text her the picture the minute you get off the phone?
Otherwise, we’ll be spending every Thanksgiving with her parents.
I
went through something like this myself when I was a maid of honor in
the late ’60s. The style for weddings then was aggressively
anti-establishment; the bridal party was not bound by deadly tradition.
My friend the bride, who was following a strict health-food regimen of
eight to 10 diet pills a day to maintain a Twiggy-like figure, was going
to be wearing a white crochet minidress that fell a good six inches
below her behind. I had been scouring Greenwich Village shops for
several weeks trying to find something that went with it. This was
difficult because, really, nothing went with it.
I
had my doubts about the marriage. The groom was bisexual; he was also
high-strung, although after weeks of trying to find the right thing to
wear, who among the bridal party was not? Anyway, I finally found an
understated gray and white dress that couldn’t upstage a nun and got the
bride’s approval. Then I got an innocuous pair of white high-heel
sandals to go with the dress. Then I got a call from the groom.
“You bought WHITE SHOES!” he screamed. “You’re RUINING my wedding! ONLY THE BRIDE WEARS WHITE!”
He
was not such a stickler for tradition on the honeymoon, where he and
his wife engaged in a three-way with a fellow whose interest, according
to what the bride told me, was focused entirely on the groom. This was
also what it looked like in the Polaroids.
It will not surprise you to learn that this marriage did not last. I like to think it had nothing to do with my shoes.
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