The wedding went smoothly. My hair and makeup didn’t. Here’s what I learned during my recent foray as mother-of-the-bride…
Lesson #1: If you haven’t used hot rollers or a blow dryer in five years, practice before the wedding day
I’d hoped for thick, glossy hair swept up into a soft, elegant bun. That’s not what I got. I’d forgotten that blow dryers have an Incinerate setting. After five minutes of intense drying, I looked like I’d backcombed my entire head. I was the “before” picture in the conditioner ads.
I slathered my hair with mousse and wrestled my split ends into rollers. Unfortunately, hot rollers don’t work properly if you leave damp spots in your hair. I didn’t get curls—I got odd, random wavy patches that looked vaguely like speed bumps. I’d created a hairstyle that could best be described as “Is That Even Fixable?” The answer: No.
I clamped my hair back using a cheap plastic clip, and then my mother—who firmly believes it’s time for me to grow up and cut my damned hair—doused me with half a bottle of maximum hold hairspray. Not one frizzy strand escaped her attention. She’d created a certified bike helmet.
Lesson #2: If you haven’t worn eye makeup in five years, do a trial run before the day of the wedding
I bought mascara, eyeliner and an eyelash curler one week before the wedding. Smart move. Then I waited until one hour before the wedding to pry my purchases out of their cellophane wrappers and try to use them. Not a smart move.
The last time I’d used an eyeliner, it had looked, and acted, like a pencil crayon—a few swipes and a subtle hint of color miraculously appeared on my lids. Today’s eyeliners appear to be manufactured by the same company that makes permanent markers. One swipe, and I looked like I’d smeared a thick line of black tar across my right lid. While having a seizure.
I couldn’t find any makeup remover, so I used olive oil to get rid of the black streak. After much scrubbing, I was back to bare skin. I decided to play it safe and skip the eyeliner. But can you guess what happens when you curl short, poker-straight eyelashes after soaking them in olive oil? I’ll give you a hint: They don’t curl. Ever. I clamped the eyelash curler onto my lashes and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. I still had straight eyelashes.
Getting more frantic (it was now 40 minutes until the wedding), I ditched the eyelash curler and brushed on the lengthening mascara. It didn’t lengthen. With every swipe, my lashes got lumpier and stickier. The individual lashes happily piggybacked on each other, forming thick clumps covered with a bark-like coating of mascara. Instead of long, curled lashes, I had stubby little tree trunks sprouting straight out of my upper lids.
Lesson #3: If you haven’t worn contact lenses in five years, try them on before the big day to make sure you’ll be able to see
Just before racing out the door, I popped in my contact lenses. I haven’t worn contacts in five years, and my eyeglass prescription has changed since then. Turns out, my contact lens prescription should have changed, too.
I could see well enough out of my right eye to identify faces. But the left one was so blurry, my eyes couldn’t actually focus together. My left eye mutinied and spent the entire day looking around at random sites—blurry flowers, blurry lights, blurry guests—while my right eye tried, in vain, to keep me informed about what was in front of me, such as the bride, the groom, steep stairs and the occasional wall.
On the plus side, having one completely unusable eye meant I lost all depth perception—so my crunchy helmet hair and spiky bark lashes didn’t look nearly as bad (to me) as they would have if I’d had 20/20 vision. As long as I’m not in any of the wedding photos, I’ll be happy.
Here’s the cute couple!
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