Bridesmaid for Hire – Two Years

You’ve heard me tell this story so many times.

But two-years-ago, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I posted that Craigslist ad. I was sick of being the perpetual bridesmaid for my friends. My roommate, in passing, called me a professional bridesmaid. I had a bad Friday night. I came home and posted the ad and went to sleep. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t think I ever would.

730 days later, I’ve walked down the aisle and stood by the side of strangers, on the biggest day of their lives. I’ve picked up the phone, for people i’ve never met in person, when they called at1:30am with a case of cold feet. I’ve picked brides up from the literal ground when they drank too much at their wedding, when they had bridesmaids drop out of their wedding the night before, and even when their groom-to-be backed out of getting married last minute.

I’ve told my story on over 500 media outlets. I wrote a book. I toyed with the idea of a TV show. I was on a game show called To Tell the Truth. I accused Steve Harvey of hitting on me, in front of a studio audience.

But none of this is about any of that.

This is about what those brides did to my life.

How they helped me learn things about love that I never would have learned on my own. There are only so many horrible Tinder dates a person can go on before they adopt a theory that finding your soul mate is as impossible as finding a pair of rain boots that’ll make it through an entire winter in NYC with getting a hole in them.

Everything breaks, even your heart, when you’re a 20-something hopeless romantic, always a bridesmaid, always going on a first date.

These brides have shattered my idea that the perfect person is someone we just stumble upon when we least expect them to pop into our lifes. Love, they have shown me, isn’t a fairytale. It isn’t something we passively grab onto.

It’s a freaking fight. 

It’s not pretty. It has baggage. It sometimes has you finding yourself standing in the middle of an aisle at CVS wondering you’re even capable of opening up your entire heart to someone who hasn’t known you for the past 28 years.

Love is anything but easy. It’s anything but a walk in the park. Those that make it to the “finish line” have only gotten there because they completed a trialathon of Tough Mudder-like obstacles throughout their relationship.

Anyway, I’m rambling. Love makes me do that. So does this job.

2-years-ago I posted an ad on Craigslist and I went to sleep. That was the last night I slept well in 730 days.

That ad became my life, my source of income, my reason to get out of bed in the morning and work hard to make my mark on the world, on a messed up overpriced wedding industry, on complete strangers lives.

I don’t know if being a professional bridesmaid was my true-calling in life. Maybe there’s no such thing. Maybe we’re supposed to be 15 different things, have 15 different careers, fall in love 15 different times before we figure it all out.

Or maybe we never do. I’m just so incredibly thankful to the people in the past 2 years who have called me crazy. Because they are right. You have to be a certain kind of crazy to believe in something, with your entire heart, that you invented by accident.

Thank you for your support, always and forever.