Bridesmaid Vocabulary
Stop me if you know the meaning of these words: bolero, dupioni, brocade, sienne, southern formal wedding.
In the process of preparing for my next debut as bridesmaid (bridesmatron?) I’ve learned so many new words. Which shouldn’t be surprising, since I am no fashion maven, and Kayb is an incredibly talented artist who is ultra-fashionably aware. She also has the skills to know how to run a sewing machine (unlike me).
Kayb and I have been close friends since college. We’ve shared apartments and had a lot of adventures, and I don’t get to see her often enough, so I’m excited for the wedding (thought I hope it won’t be an adventure).
Dogsledding with Kayb - New Year's 2000
Halloween 1999 - I failed in my attempt to go as a candlestick (see the red hair) so opted for a kitty
Anyway, as any good bridesmaid knows, you are there to make the bride happy on her big day. So when she explained that I would be wearing an English dress with brocade, here’s where my mind went: floor-length, something lacy? I don’t know. So, I couldn’t have ever come up with a mental picture that came close to the real dress (click here for more photos).
A few years ago my mother showed me her wedding announcement and I was surprised to find out that the trend in wedding announcements at the time was to provide lengthy descriptions of the wedding attire. Fabrics, styles, lengths, and hems were all allotted the same amount of space newspapers normally reserve for car accidents today. Women (and men) must have known a lot more about fabrics then because without a picture, it would have been hard to picture. This is in contrast to my own wedding (see below), where my bridesmaids (Kayb and my sister) were in charge of choosing the dress.
So, back to my bridesmaid dress. I had just gotten over my brocade learning curve when I received this note from Kayb:
“Hi ladies,
It just occurred to me that I have the perfect solution to the bare back issue. A bolero.”
Aha! I thought. A Mexican hat! That ought to do the trick. If it has a wide enough brim it might be able to cast shade to cover the moles on our backs.
I then googled bolero to find out that no, a bolero is not a Mexican hat, but rather a fancy dress jacket. Phew!
The bolero pictured here was my favorite, but alas, it was only Kayb’s idea of a joke! The bolero idea was eventually scrapped in favor of a silk shawl (very classy) but I was happy to learn a new word, especially a fashionable one.
More new words would fly my way when Kayb wrote to apologize about the dresses.
“Hi ladies,
Your dresses should be either at my house or at your place by now. It appears that I made a mistake in the ordering. I thought the dresses were silk brocade and so when I got them I was pretty stunned that this wasn’t what it was. It is a synthetic brocade. I called the dress shop today and it appears that I had read the options incorrectly. The dress is either brocade or silk dupioni. I should have noticed this as dupioni is nubby and could never be a brocade. That said, I am sorry if you thought you were getting a silk brocade.”
Never would have known the difference — nubby or not — so she certainly didn’t have to apologize to me. The full-length version of my dress arrived last week (I’m so tall that someone has to cut it to order), and my only concern is preventing a wardrobe malfunction like Janet Jackson at the Superbowl and letting some bare body part of mine slip out while dancing. That’s when apologies will truly be necessary.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: bridesmaids, dresses, fabric, friendship, humor, style, weddings
July 30th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
November 8th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Oh my. It's a whole 'nother world.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Oh, that is funny. But, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed. I distinctly remember a few years back (way more than I want to count I'm sure), Kayb telling me she was going to have a circus themed wedding. When I saw she was engaged I was so excited to find out what that would look like!
November 8th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Isn’t a “bolero” that very sexy song by Ravel? I also liked the furry one!
It is! Do you remember the Olympics where the ice dancers won the gold skating to that song? Amazing. Janelle
November 9th, 2009 at 6:30 am
That dress is lovely, and it’s not really a wedding until someone’s something falls out.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I actually spit fruit juice on my monitor when you said it was a big Mexican hat . . .
November 9th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Tasha,Wow, you remember better than I do! Funny, I was looking over wedding themes and thought to myself, "Circus, that seems fun." But I thought it was a new idea. I seem to forever recycle old ideas thinking they are new. Anyway, I decided not. It will be a fairly liturgical wedding, and though an ape quartet would be novel it just didn't seem fitting. I am going more for, elegance on less than 10k. Which is harder then I thought it would be.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
What a beautiful bride you were. More and larger photos, please! Ah, nostalgic here as I will never be a bridesmaid, bridesmatron or matron/maid of honor again. Maybe I’ll be mother of the bride or groom, a distinctly third-class position. I never wore the dresses again, either…Is this brocade dress recyclable?