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Dear Jasminda,

One of my best friends is getting married and she recently announced her bridesmaids. Even though five of us are as thick as thieves and go everywhere together, she has three bridesmaids and I am not one of them. I’m devastated.
Miss KL, Corlette

Dear Miss KL,

There’s an old saying: always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Maybe your friend just wants to increase your odds in the ‘getting married’ department. I can understand you must be devastated, but being a bridesmaid isn’t always such a great gig. Brides-to-be are hard work. They turn into demanding, expensive bridezillas that want you to spend a fortune on your dress, even though you have yellow-toned skin and they’ve picked the most ridiculous shade of orange, so you look like a rather unwell lobster. You then have to buy matching shoes, knowing you will never wear them again and they’ll be on the Port Stephens Buy Swap and Sell site the day after the wedding for a fraction of what you paid.

On top of that there’s the Hens’ Night to organise. This is an event where you invite lots of people who seem to have an inability to forward deposit money. You then need to organise all the trimmings, from ‘friend of the bride’ sashes to phallic straws to a stripper who looks young enough to be your son, in fact ends up being your friend’s son, and all you want to do is wrap him in a blanket and give him a cup of Milo instead of having to endure the embarrassment of watching him gyrate to ‘I Want to be a Cowboy’.

At the actual wedding, there’s a whole range of duties to attend to, such as ushering people to their seats, dancing with a groomsman who smells like he’s doused himself in Brut 33, taking the bride to the toilet and holding her dress while she relieves herself, and remaining stone cold sober because she wants you to say a speech.

As a guest, you will have so much more fun. You can sit with your partner, drink and eat as much as you like, and when the bride inevitably ends up whinging to you about her bridesmaids, you can just give her a comforting wink and say, ‘It is for that very reason, that you will never be a bridesmaid at my all-expenses-paid wedding in Paris. I care about you too much.’

Carpe diem,
Jasminda