Never A Bridesmaid

Since Husband fixed my scanner and showed me a few tricks I didn't know before (which is not hard to do), I've been going through old pictures. I had to blog about this particular picture.

The year was 1990. I was a senior in high school in Northern Minnesota, and I worked at my best friend's mother's flower shop, which she co-owned with another woman. When these two women had an opportunity to show off their floral talents in a wedding show, they jumped at the chance, and they signed up Kim (my bff) and myself to be models for the gowns. Kim got to be a bride, and I was her bridesmaid in teal.

That was my first experience with runway modeling. Well, I guess it was my second. My first experience was back when I was 8 and in a 4-H group in Southern Idaho. I had made a skirt, and all us girls were taken to an auditorium and taught how to walk a runway and how to pivot in order to show off our less than stellar seamstress abilities. Those lessons helped me out during this later gig.

What you can see in this photograph is my hair. Oh, the hair. I had long, permed 80s hair (without the Bangs to Heaven), and the hair lady teased it up into this bouffant of enormous proportions. Then she lacquered it with a continuous spray of Aquanet long enough that I was choking and gasping in a desperate attempt to breathe. I just want you to know that I was not responsible for my hairstyle OR my makeup in this show.

What you can't see in this photograph is that the dress was backless. I had never, ever worn a backless anything, and I admit I felt very exposed. You can't tell from the front, can you? I guess the idea is to walk down the aisle during a church wedding and have everyone think how sweet you are in your modest teal gown. Then, when you pass and flash all that bare back, people get an entirely different idea about you. Who knows? I think that in a situation like that, the bride should also be in a backless dress. I've never been a bridesmaid, so I don't really know the etiquette surrounding all that.