I caught the bouquet. Again.
Recently I attended the seventh wedding of about 20 I've been invited to since my divorce five years ago. As a divorced person, I am now eligible to stand among the milling crowd of "available" females vying for the dubious honor of catching the bridal bouquet.
It's rather silly, really, when you picture a crowd of 10 or 20 single females ranging in age from 6 to 60 ready to fight tooth and nail over a bunch of flowers that have already been used.
Why do we females do it, anyway? Do we really believe that we'll be the next to be married if we catch the stupid thing? Is it really important to walk away with the most coveted souvenir of the entire event?
I don't quite know how to explain this phenomenon. Something just comes over me at the precise moment the bride turns her back. My competitive nature takes over. The adrenaline starts to flow. My reflexes coil for the jump. My gaze sharpens to gauge the exact spot the tossed bouquet will land. I live for the thrill of victory.
Once the trophy is in my hands, however, a different reaction sets in. Awareness slowly dawns as I stare at the riot of colors in my grasp. I begin to shake. I cannot speak. My breathing becomes labored. I curse the impulse that guided me to this fatal moment. I wonder with horror if the tradition, in fact, could have a spark of truth to it.
Over the years, I caught enough bouquets, apparently, to finally warrant the tossing of my own. The bridesmaid who caught it, Christia, was married six months later to Terry, who caught the garter my new husband threw. It was the first time either of them had caught anything at a wedding. It was also the last time I heard from either of them again.
The first bouquet I collected post-divorce was from the wedding of my cousin Bruce, who married my brother's second ex-wife, Debbie. The actual plucking of the bouquet out of the air is a blur in my memory, but the photographer froze the moment quite nicely for me. I was appalled to see that I had body-blocked three other women in midair (one of whom was my Aunt Mary, the mother of the groom), while pushing one of my small daughters out of the way with one hand and grabbing the bouquet out of the grasp of the maid of honor with the other. I turned down the next five wedding invitations I received because I did not feel confident in my ability to control my behavior.
I attended Stella's wedding only because she was one of my very best friends and had invited me to share in her happy occasion as a bridesmaid. It wasn't enough that I had a bridesmaid's bouquet, or that each of my daughters had flower girl baskets. I wanted the whole ball of wax, so to speak.
I'm happy to report that, although I did step on one guest's toes to get at the bouquet, I did not elbow anyone in the face as I scrambled over the shorter people in front of me to catch the flying flowers. This whole sequence was recorded on videotape.
At Ruth Anne's wedding the following summer, I swore I would not make an idiot of myself once again. I would not even join the gaggle, I vowed. If I wasn't standing there, I couldn't catch it, I reasoned. Twenty minutes and my sixth bouquet later, I was looking into the anguished eyes of the bride's sister, whom I stepped in front of to snatch the bouquet.
This was essentially the same group of girls who gathered for the tossing at Julieann's wedding a month later. I swear I wouldn't have caught this one, but in the split second after it sailed through the air, I looked around and realized no one else was making a move toward it. They knew I was there. My reputation had, at last, preceded me. I couldn't embarrass the bride by letting her bouquet hit the ground.
Since then, I've passed up two opportunities to catch the bouquet. I'm still debating whether to attend Cheryl's wedding this weekend.
I don't think I need any more trophies.