Pickled Easter

For the second year in a row, Pickle's parents have invited me over to spend Easter with their family. And for the second year in a row, it was awesome. Church was good, food was delicious, Pickle's parents even had tulips and chocolate for me as an Easter gift. Yay!

This year, Sassy joined us and Griffith and Cukie were there, as well, and much discussion was had around their pending nuptials. And it became more and more clear that Cukie has never had friends get married. Bless her heart, she's just a little clueless about wedding traditions and fun. Her mom is throwing her a shower (which is inappropriate) and she has refused invitations from the groom's family and friends for various showers and celebrations. But Easter was fun, as she and Griffith talked about their plans and opened a few early-arriving gifts.

Between lunch and dessert, Pickle's mom brought out a box of table talk cards and we began playing random conversation games and learned that my dream car would include a driver and that Pickle's husband has a new favorite (crude noise) iPhone app. At some point, show tunes and movie quotes broke out and I KNEW that I was in the presence of a good family when we all started quoting Steel Magnolias. (This is why Pickle and I are friends).

On the way home, Pickle and Sassy and I discussed her concerns about her new sister-in-law-to-be and why she's having a hard time embracing it. So we discuss the details, including the awful bridesmaid dresses, the awkward comments that have been made and the way Griffith has been acting different since meeting Cukie. Pickle is learning to accept it, if by no other way than discussing her concerns with girlfriends. A little catty, maybe...but it's what we do.

All in all, Easter was lovely. A little cold and rainy (definitely no floral dress and sandals) but lovely.

Here Comes the...Hot Bride-y Mess?!?

I love weddings. I really do. But every now and then I go to a wedding that is really tacky. For a while, I was averaging one Tacky Wedding a year. The rate has gone down, but every now and then I hit a Tacky Wedding.

Tacky Wedding experiences include:
- Mother of the groom in a white button-down shirt and black slacks, walking down the aisle to a tape of elevator music
- Sitting next to a bra-less woman in a sundress with a tattoo of a naked woman on her arm
- Pregnant bride re-using flowers, music and bridesmaid dresses from a friend's wedding a month earlier (bless her heart)

BUT I think the one that takes the cake, topper and all, is coming up.

Griffith and Cukie are planning the following:

- SoCal in July (read: hotter than all of those Fight Club scenes with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt fighting shirtless)
- Groomsmen in black corduroy "skinny jeans", white button-downs and gray vests, with Vans slide-ons. Because corduroy in July wasn't offensive enough, they had to make them "skinny jeans", which are flattering on absolutely NO ONE.
- Bridesmaids in bright turquoise satin, empire waist with box pleats. It will be hard to pick out the pregnant bridesmaid because they will ALL look pregnant. Oh wait. Except that the box pleats will be totally fanned out around the belly of the 8-month pregnant bridesmaid. Not that it matters how badly the dress fits, because it will be so covered in sweat marks seeing as how she's pregnant in July in SoCal and wearing satin that no one will notice the ill-fitting dress style.
- Giant margarita mixer at the reception.

Um...really? The mother of the groom has already requested to be left out of the planning process, because hearing the details just upsets her.