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To be completely honest, bridesmaid bingo wasn't something I was overly thrilled about participating in. I wasn't exactly known as a party girl and all the craziness of a bachelorette party just seemed over the top. Especially considering there wasn't a single one of us in the group under the age of thirty.
I wasn't the kind of woman who put a ton of emphasis on age, or who decided as a teenager I'd been stamped with an invisible expiration date that would render me no longer relevant after my mid-twenties. Getting older didn't particularly bother me, and I never really thought of it as holding me back from anything.
Right up until my best friend from childhood broke the news to me that even though I was the maid of honor for her wedding, her sister was insisting on throwing the bachelorette party. I told her I understood. Viv just wanted to be a special part of the celebrations leading up to the wedding, and I knew it would mean a lot to her to be able to plan and host this event.
Brianne said she was touched by how well I took it and how kind and understanding I was being giving up what was widely thought of as one of the most important, and most eagerly anticipated, responsibilities of being a maid of honor.
What she didn't know, and what I wasn't going to tell her, was that I had completely forgotten about the bachelorette party and had absolutely no plans for it. I also didn't really have any interest in putting one together. I was more than happy for Viv to do it. That was much more her scene. She would get to feel more involved, Brianne would have the pre-wedding celebration she'd always envisioned, and I wouldn't be tasked with sourcing things such as a Pin the Penis on the Groomsman game. It was a win all the way around.
That didn't mean I could skip the evening, though. I was expected to participate in all the revelry, no matter how over the top or potentially embarrassing it all was.
However, I was willing to do it for Brianne. She'd been dreaming about getting married since we were just little girls. As far back as I could remember, her eventual wedding was her favorite topic of conversation. No sleepover was complete without a long contemplation of wedding dress styles, which shades of purple and green wouldn't look like Mardi Gras together, and what kind of favors would be cutest.
We'd been through what felt like hundreds of different versions of her future wedding by the time she met Bryan and announced to me that he was officially, without a doubt, no question about it, The One. She was going to marry that boy, according to her exact words after her first date.
As it turned out, she was right. The wedding coming up in just a few days barely resembled the plans she'd come up with during all those late-night, popcorn and soda-fueled planning sessions, but I could have predicted that. When we were younger, the joy was in the fluff and dreaming. Now that she had found the man she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with, it was real. Planning this wedding was about creating the true celebration of the two of them.
So, I was willing to go along with it to give her the bridal experience she’d always wanted. Even if that did mean wearing a feather boa for the first time since I was eight years old, along with a glowing penis necklace, and quite possibly being the bane of every bar in town.
And kissing a hot stranger because I couldn't go back on a dare.
This was certainly not what I ever would have imagined myself doing on a Saturday night, but if I was being really honest, I was actually kind of having fun. Especially when it came to that kiss.
The sexy man I'd just laid one on seemed a little shocked and looked like he was about to say something. Before he could, Brianne stumbled toward us.
"Hey," she said, a bit too loud and decidedly too slurred. "That looked like fun."
"Yes, Bri," I said, trying to step into her path to intervene and get her back to our table before she could do anything ridiculous. "I did it. I kissed a stranger. Yay! Super fun. All right, let's get back to the girls now."
"But I want to try," she said. "Come here."
She was fast for a drunk girl and was able to dodge me. Her hands extended and her mouth open, she lunged at the guy I'd just kissed. He leaned back to avoid her, and I managed to grab on to her.
"Whoa there," I said. "This wasn't your dare. You're the bride, remember? You're making the dares, not playing along."
"I'm the bride," she said.
I nodded. "Yes. You are the bride."
She looked around at the people sitting at the table with the guy I’d kissed. I tried not to count the number of girls or notice if any of them were sitting particularly close to him. There hadn’t been any angry shouting or flailing when I’d kissed him, so I was hopefully going to avoid a catfight that night.
"I'm the bride," she said with more affirmation.
A couple of them lifted beers to toast her.
"Congratulations," the guy said.
Brianne looked at me. "I'm the bride."
"Yes," I said. "And we're going to go back to the table now. Maybe order some nice coffee or some French fries for everybody."
"Okay," Bri said. She looked over at the guys again. "Have a lovely evening."
I looped arms with her and guided her back to the table to sit down with the rest of the girls. They cheered when they saw me, and I struck a little pose.
"Mission accomplished," I said. "And I think we can go ahead and give me the 'prevented the bride's poor decision-making' off my board, too. Which means I believe I have a full diagonal right there."
I kind of hoped that my triumph would mark the end of the gaming portion of the festivities for the evening, but I was mistaken. As soon as they were finished celebrating me and I was presented with a lollipop I had absolutely no intention of eating in public thanks to its predictable shape, Viv launched into the description of the next game on the docket.
