Dear Sitcom Advice,
I’ve been asked to be a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding. It’s her second marriage, and we’re more than a decade removed from the heyday of wedding season. I assumed it would be a casual affair until I received a package in the mail. It included a letter from the bride asking me to be a bridesmaid and included a bunch of cute items with glitter. The glitter infected my house like a roach infestation. I feel like we’re too old, but now she’s scheduled a dress fitting, an elaborate bachelorette weekend and all of the pomp and circumstance of the wedding. Is there any way out of this nightmare of being a bridesmaid and repeating the worst part of my 20s?
—The Bride of Frankenstein’s Bridesmaid
Jay: The only way that I see to get out is to try to switch sides of the aisle. Bachelor’s mellow with age. Could you claim to be friends with the groom instead? You’ll probably end up at a Dave & Buster’s and be home from the Bachelor’s party at 9:30 on a Tuesday night. The wedding duties for a groomsman are limited to sitting around and hearing updates from the bridesmaids about how horrible things are going. About an hour into the reception, you can walk up to the groom, say congratulations and then say, “I’m leaving. Let’s catch a game once you get back from your honeymoon.” I was a Bridesmaid for Eliza’s sister, and it ruined my life for six months.
Eliza: There’s no such thing as being too old for this kind of thing. The people who love it will love it forever, and the people who hate it (like you and me) are stuck living in this wedding hell. I spent a lot of time cultivating friendships, trying to anticipate if they would turn out to be horrible brides. If the women were very nonchalant or wanted a wedding ceremony in the woods, I felt like I could be friends with theM. The ones that have 25 Pinterest boards for their future wedding should scare off both the groom and any potential bridesmaids. However, my sister is a big wedding person, and I’ve been trying to keep her marriage alive so that I don’t have to go through a second one of her weddings.
Gene: You said she’s already been married? You need to start a betting pool for how long you think this marriage will last, and then let her find out you’re gambling on her unhappiness. Get entirely kicked out of this friendship because the odds are this won’t be the only marriage she has left. Divorce rates go up with each failed marriage—do you want to do this again in a decade? I doubt it. It’s time to blow up the bridesmaid duties. I bet on how long Eliza’s sister would stay married, and she still sometimes sends me postcards that say, “I hope you die.”
Kenny: If this person is close enough to you to ask you to be a bridesmaid, you probably should just value that part of the friendship. However, that doesn’t mean you have to go along with everything. You’re both clearly in the adult category, which means adult things like work, family and Alcoholics Anonymous retreats can take precedence over some of the wedding activities. Sorry, I won’t be able to attend the dress fitting due to a last-minute business trip. This may hurt the bride’s feelings a little, but as long as you show up some of the time, she shouldn’t be too mad. One thing—if the bride is Eliza’s sister, get out. Do not go to the wedding.
About Sitcom Advice: This column takes the idea that four classic troupe characters in comedy play out repeatedly. These four tropes are the patriarch, the matriarch, the clown and the professor. Using shows like Seinfeld, Arrested Development and How I Met Your Mother, we explore Sitcom Advice from these four lenses.