Wedding Zillas

Today was Dionne's bridal shower, something that was both a success and a disaster at the same time.

To begin with, nobody showed up, except for Jordan. So it was a small, intimate affair. Amy and I had planned a scrapbooking shower for her, but it went away from that and instead we just munched on Chinese food and then went shopping at Target. And after going shopping for several hours, Amy and I have agreed we will never go shopping with or likely hang out with Jordan again.

I know it probably speaks poorly of me to rant about someone here, but I am shocked and appalled at the way D was treated and as she is one of my friends, I feel the need to comment on it.

Jordan has a very domineering personality, whereas Dionne has always been very indecisive and almost submissive around such women because of her background with her mom. I've been described as having a very strong, independent personality, but I'm not controlling, which is why Dionne has never interacted that way with me. Anyway, while we were shopping, Jordan picked out probaby 40 different things for Dionne, from swimming suits to housing accessories and it was incredible to watch how she honestly ordered Dionne to get this, get that, try that on or put this back. Amy and I were amazed as she micro-managed Dionne's purchases and Dionne just took it.

At dinner, it came out that Jordan had decided to throw Dionne a house-warming party (Dionne is moving to Lawrence at the end of next week) and had already come up with the guest list, the invitations, the food selections. Amy and I exchanged glances and I knew we were feeling the same thing: annoyed and hurt, because we're Dionne's best friends, and Jordan hadn't even thought to include us. I even looked at Amy and raised my eyebrows in our code of, Is this chick for real? It only got worse as Jordan told us our itinerary and dress code for the various wedding-related events coming up, including what kind of make-up we'd be expected to wear ("Dionne needs to be the one standing out, so be prepared to buy brown and pink eye shadow") and suggesting that we buy another pair of shoes, on top of the pair we already purchased for the ceremony.

In it's own way, it was absolutely insane. I've heard of bride-zillas, mom-zillas and even mom-in-law-zillas (hey, I had one of those) but a not-actually-a-member-of-the-wedding-zilla?

I really feel like all the experiences I've had being in Dionne's wedding since she let Jordan take over would make great material for a book, much like one I read shortly before I got married called Diary of a Mad Bride. Since Jordan's role is Personal Attendant, maybe I'll entitle this memoir Diary of a Mad Personal Attendant Victim.

The bright side is that Dionne clearly enjoyed herself, and Amy and I were able to behave around Jordan. Not saying anything about how she was treating one of my best friends like mud goes against everything that seems innate to my being, but I had to think of Dionne's welfare and stress level, and somehow I doubt declaring open war on Jordan in the lingerie aisle of Target would have accomplished much from a productive standpoint, and I know Amy feels the same way.

And I got to take home all the Chinese food, because once we were done shopping, the other girls didn't want to dig through the cartons to figure out what belongs to who, so I now have six little boxes of Chinese take-out in my fridge. There's lunch for a week!

I also managed to find a body pillow (I've really wanted one for a while now, so that I can take half the pillows off my bed and stash them in the closet for guests) and some earrings to a necklace that I didn't have any for. And heck, we got ice cream, so really, how much complaining can I do?

I will say this much for Jordan. There is no doubt she has relieved a lot of the stress Dionne is under by taking a few of the more troublesome tasks off her hands. I wish that I had thought to trust someone (heck, anyone--I had eight bridesmaids!) enough to ask for their help in those kinds of issues, like mailing out invitations, planning a timeline and arranging hotel accomodations for guests. I wonder how much less frazzled I would have been in the actual pre-wedding process.

In any case, Kourtney is almost here, and we're going to go buy some pants for church and talk about life.