Swans Finally Get Their Prince

This weekend I am going to a wedding in Albuquerque. One of my dearest friends is getting married, and I am her maid-of-honor. This means I am not only packing the usual sundresses and sandals, but also emergency mimosa kits, extra safety pins, bachelorette party supplies, a Very Pink taffeta dress, and crap to inspire me to write a speech.

The speech scares me more than the penis paraphernalia. I am terrified of public speaking. If I write mindless babble on a blog, no one is forced to read it. But 150 of my Little Swan’s nearest and dearest are going to be forced to listen to me blather on in a cracking Minnie Mouse voice. (The cracking is due to nerves. Minnie is just me, au naturel.)

What to say…. We have some great stories. But I don’t know how much her family wants to hear about freshman puke fests, or how much her soon-to-be husband needs to hear about the escapades involving ripped but skanky cadets from the Air Force Academy, who were just down the street from our hippie college. Or the stripper our whole freshman hall went in on, together, and got her for her birthday that year. He was very odd, with his rip-away snap-up jeans. He also had some technical name for his thong, if I remember correctly.

I still have pictures.

Although I’m not sure I can slip them into the slideshow unnoticed.

Do I talk about the two of us meeting up in Italy and eating the equivalent of a small engagement ring’s worth of gelato? Do I mention our “dress up” phase, where we’d do an entire fashion shoot in our very best homecoming wear at her aunt and uncle’s house while they were out of town? Do I talk about how we passed up on wholesome backpacking adventures that the rest of our class went on, to spend four glorious days at the mall? Or the vicious slaughter of my dignity when she dragged me to ballet class?

So many memories. So few that are “wedding appropriate.”

Congratulations, Little Swan. I don’t know what I’m going to say. But should the topic of false idol worship come up at your wedding, I promise to keep any mentions of ritualistic blood sacrifices to our Audrey Hepburn and James Dean posters to a minimum.