Saturday 9 February 2013

Runaway Bride

I dreatm that I announced to my family that I wanted to get married. The next thing I knew, it was my wedding day and I was marrying a girl named Trish that I went to primary school with. It was in a church, which I didn't like, there were 5 bridesmaids, none of whom I knew and they were wearing pink dresses, carrying little wicker baskets with pink flowers. There was a row of musicians holding trombones, which I also didn't want and to top it off, I didn't even have an engagement ring.

As soon as I noticed this, my cousin called me over to see Trish, who then gave me a rather ugly gold ring which had lost its stone. She said she would replace it soon, with a pink diamond, to which I rebelliously told her I wanted a red garnet. Then I left, saying I needed to go to the bathroom.

So there I am, in the bathroom, suddenly realising I'm wearing this poofy white dress with massive veil. I started to panic and realised that I didn't want any of this, that I should have been allowed to plan my own wedding and have the colours and dresses I wanted, not what someone else wanted. And I didn't want to marry Trish!

At that point, a bit of reality inserted itself. I knew that I hadn't wanted to get married the first time (which is true), that I should have cancelled it, even though it was the last minute (also true) and that when I had confessed this to my parents many years after the divorce, telling them that I hadn't had the guts because of all the money they had spent, they had said that wouldn't have mattered (not entirely sure if this is true, but I think it might be).

Remembering this, I decided that surely they would understand this time if I called it all of. Then I looked at my watch, saw it was 11.30 and realised I didn't have time to ring and call it off. So I decided to just make a run for it.

I was just trying to work out how I could escape without anyone seeing me, and thinking that it was very like the scene in Smokey and the Bandit when Sally Field escapes in her wedding dress, when I woke up.

Took me a minute to realise that I wasn't getting married with a bunch of pink bridesmaids, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.