Stumbling Into Tradition

Growing up, I never really saw the appeal of dressing up. I wasn’t vehemently against the idea; I just never saw the appeal. I have always had horrible fashion sense, and my interests have always been branded as nerdy or boyish or both, but I never really put much stock in that. I would dress in whatever was comfortable, including sometimes summer dresses or skirts or what have you. But I wasn’t dressing to look nice. I was just me.

My family was generally supportive, though many of my family members, from my older cousins to my mom to my grandparents, were all waiting for the day I’d be a bit more girly. It’s also important to note that I was quite well known in my family as being clumsy, to the point where there was a bit of a running joke that I didn’t look like myself unless I had a band-aid or I was actively fumbling with something.

When I was eleven, my older cousin Natalie was getting married. I was made a junior bridesmaid, and it was the excuse my family was waiting for to go all out on prettying me up. And to be fair, I didn’t mind. There was one other junior bridesmaid, from the groom’s side, and she was good company. We were wearing the same green dress as the adult bridesmaids, so the fashion thing was taken care of for me. I got a manicure with the other bridesmaids, and it was fun. Almost every kid likes being treated like they’re older than they are, after all.

We were staying in a hotel near the place where the ceremony was being held. I was doing my best to be as careful as possible, but the morning of the ceremony, as I came down the stairs of the hotel, I remembered I had left something upstairs. I turned around and ran upstairs and tripped up the stairs…

Despite my family’s best efforts and really good make-up work, I still looked really disheveled in the wedding photos, with visible bruising and my glasses taped up. My aunt (Natalie’s mother) wanted me to remove them for the ceremony, but I can’t see two inches away from me without them. Natalie was laughing, though – she said it wouldn’t have looked like me in the photos unless the glasses were taped up!