Image by LexnGer via Flickr

Bridal Party rule #1: The maid-of honor is NOT supposed to try on veils when dress shopping for the bride. It will cause the rest of the party to scream at said maid-of-honor, who will be very glad she is wearing a blusher so that she can hide her burning cheeks behind it. Not that the maid-of-honor will know that’s what the pretty gauzy veil pulled over the face is called, until schooled by the bride.

And the tipsy sales lady.

Who is that clueless maid-of-honor? That’s me. But I plead distance… loooooong distance. 2,555 miles to be exact.

You see, I live in Los Angeles, home of the swinger, where most people don’t get married till 35 and undying devotion until then is usually reserved for little dogs and one’s acting school. My best friend, Elise, lives in Charlottesville, the elegant home of Jefferson and the Wahoos of UVA. It’s the land of rolling green hills and professors with Co-op memberships.

Elise and I met during our freshman year of college at Hollins University. Hollins is an all girls school with excellent academics and even better traditions, all of which seem to involve a bottle of Champagne in one hand and a ridiculous costume being held up by the other.

We were both unformed girls from small college towns and we became fast friends and soon roommates. Our shared love of gossiping in the cafeteria for hours, murder mysteries, rubbing each other’s heads, and being know-it-alls in our respective areas of interest (hers were the sciences-particularly biology, and mine were the arts) sealed the deal.
Over the years, I became Elise’s unsolicited consultant when it came to boyfriends. I was, to put it nicely, terrified of relationships and all for the casual. Elise, on the other hand, was a nurturer who took care of her boyfriends with the same kind firmness with which she took care of me. I stuck my nose in her business and she made sure I made it to my own bed at the end of the night.

Let’s just say I was the wilder of the two.

Once we graduated we kept our friendship up, talking on the phone almost every day, even though I moved to LA to pursue a career in the arts. Elise had numerous adventures, getting her master’s degree in Australia, traveling the world, working in the sciences.

We would visit each other often, and somewhere in that timeframe Elise met her fiancé Jeremy, a terrific med student with a wicked sense of humor and a heart as giving as Elise’s.

He proposed to her, she said yes, and here we are.

Emails flow constantly, I try and give my opinion on venues and dresses and colors, but really I don’t have a clue. I think everything is pretty, everything sounds like the best (I am an actress after all). I’ve realized the most important thing you can do is be there, even if all you are saying is: “Whatever you think is best.”

What bride doesn’t want to hear that?

Over Christmas break, I went home to NC and we went dress shopping with our friends Savon and Rosalina. I laughed when we had to sneak photos of the dresses with Savon’s cell phone. I teared up when I saw Elise beaming and radiant in one particular gown before making another faux pas–  flouncing her train while the sales lady swayed idly by.

So this is my blog, all about trying to be the best maid-of-honor I can be, even if it is over the wires. The wedding is in eight months, and I’ll be posting from time to time, sharing little wisdoms, but hopefully lots of laughs.

I will round out each post with a little tip and this one is courtesy of my friend, Savon.

Other maids-of-honor, you are welcome to use it and seem like the most helpful girl in the room:

You cannot get Tulips in the fall.

Hadley Hall Meares is named after Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. Like those lost generation expats this 20-something has had a varied and highly amusing life. She was born in Chapel Hill, NC, to liberal, preppy hippies and grew up singing, acting, writing and watching lots of college basketball. She now does the first three professionally and would like to marry someone who coaches the fourth. Hadley then attended Hollins University, where she studied art and film history, writing, and partying in pearls and a trucker hat. Hadley studied abroad in London, worked in New York, Charleston and LA and has written for several online publications including Ostrich Ink and Quintessentially Magazine.

After graduating cum nothing from Hollins, Hadley traveled cross country, got chased by a man with a gun, and settled in Los Angeles to pursue her love of storytelling. Her fiction has been published in the Santa Monica Review and the Southern Indiana Review, and she recently completed her first novel, Absolutely. She has played Henry V on stage, been a featured performer at the legendary Dresden (fulfilling her long held wish to be lounge singer) and only drinks champagne.