HitchDied

Not The Only One

| 10 Comments

I really want to run into another bride on my wedding day.

Similarly, when I’m at a party and another woman is wearing a dress the same as or very similar to mine, I must absolutely get a photo with her. Even when the other woman looks like Jessica Rabbit:

Admittedly, this is, in part, a very self-conscious act of feminism, fighting against the sexist narrative that women regard each other with suspicion, jealousy, and fear, emotions which are exponentially related to the attractiveness of the other woman. And part of it is because I’m not a jerk. So I’d rather high-five you and enjoy the camaraderie of a shared taste (read: awesome taste!) in dresses than feel bummed that you have nicer curves than I do under that dress, or what have you.

So I want to run into another bride on my wedding day and share the joy and camaraderie of “We’re both getting married today!” But I worry that if I run into another bride (which is likely, because there are three wedding spaces in the hotel I am staying in and we’ll be taking pictures in some very cliché spots around Pittsburgh the day of) she will not feel the same way. I mean, even I thought it was a plus when a venue only had one wedding space (which is more about insecurity about measuring up to the other wedding than jealousy of the bride, specifically). And what if other women do buy into the “It’s my day” message and see me as a threat to their best chance to be the center of attention for a day? I really don’t want to run in for the high-five and get a “bitch, please.”

So I think I will resist my in-your-face instincts and subtly wave to the other bride and yell, “Happy wedding!” or something like that as a way to test the waters and to see if she’d be cool with a meet n greet and an ironic Bride Wars photo. But I really hope she is, because combining the joy of two brides into one moment of bonding with a stranger sounds amazing to me.

If you are married, did you run into any other brides on your wedding day? How did it go? For everyone else, let’s just hypothetical: would you be cool with a stranger in a bridal gown being like, “Hey fellow bride, WHAT UP?” Or would that just irritate you?

10 Comments

  1. The man in the background’s face is EPIC.

    Total photobomb :)

    S xx

    P.S. If I run into another bride on my wedding day it’ll be cool with me if she said hi :)

    • I generally think that photobombers are irredeemable douches, but I’m glad there is something to look at in this picture other than my relative lack of curves!

  2. I would love love love to run into another bride on my wedding day and take a picture. I think it would be so much fun, and it would be nice to feel some kind of joyous connection with a stranger.

  3. I feel the same way! Last night in the bridal dress shop there were three of us lined up in the mirror and we all got excited together. I am hoping to run into another wedding party also – I think the amount of joy and excitement i will feel on the day would surely be echoed in other brides?

    • I was going to write a paragraph here about how much fun I had with the other bride having a dress fitting at the same time as me. We were definitely feeding off each other’s positive energy. I hugged her before I left!

  4. I had a related experience – there were three other hens’ [bachelourettes'] parties happening at the hotel my friends and I were booked into for the weekend. Not all my friends knew each other, and people were arriving at different times, but we had a dress theme – ‘Little White Dress’. So when one group of friends in white dresses arrived in the foyer and saw another group of girls in white dresses, they assumed they were the friends of mine who they didn’t know. Nope! Whole other crowd with a similar theme for their party! We then we ran into yet another group on the way out, but they were all in glittery penis hats etc – not so classy an affair :-p Also I hear you on the ‘we’re dressed as twins but this is a cool solidarity moment’ thing. I find it odd when other women don’t smile back and say ‘Snap!’.

  5. Well ignoring the obvious fact that I was with another bride all day, I would have been totally cool with running into another wedding party and high-fiving and all that, but it didn’t happen. But one of my co-workers got married last year and somehow missed that her venue held multiple weddings at one time (I’m not sure how, since it’s one of those giant wedding banquet hall buildings), and when she found out a few months before her wedding she freaked out about how if she saw another bride it was going to ruin her whole day. That seems more than a bit dramatic to me though, so I’m going to assume she’s the exception to the rule.

  6. I heart you.

    I would be OVERJOYED if I ran into another bride. I doubt that’ll happen because we’re on a farm in the middle of nowhere all weekend, and I vetoed a double wedding (since none of us have the same family so there would’ve been around 600 people there!), but I would LOVE IT.

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