I was a maid of honor at my sister’s wedding after my divorce

• As maid of honor at my twin sister’s wedding, I was a total mess after dealing with a divorce in my 30s.
• Highlights included me getting drunk during her rehearsal and hanging my groom’s ring on my finger.
• Despite it all, my sister was more concerned than upset, but I still felt guilty about my behavior.

I was soaking wet and standing barefoot in a bikini in the ladies’ room at the Aqua Pool in Las Vegas. “Are you well?” The bathroom attendant asked me the way people ask when they know for sure you’re not.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound like someone who wasn’t about to throw up. “Did you know that sometimes you are not sure if you are going to get sick?” I asked. The bathroom attendant looked at me pityingly and gave me a small white towel.

I stood in a stall, hopping over the toilet until I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to vomit. Classy, ​​I know.

I was 30 years old, recently divorcedAnd easily the drunkest, most out-of-control guy at my twin sister’s bachelor party in Vegas. Unfortunately for her, I was also a maid of honor. But there was nothing honorable about the manner in which I had conducted myself for the previous two and a half days. I got into a fight with a random guy I had met from Jersey and another from Texas, which got us kicked out of the club, and generally acted like such a fool that my sister had to babysit me. I also paid for everything because I was totally broke.

This was just the beginning.

A simple trip to pick the best man from the airport has been turned upside down

My sister’s wedding rehearsal It was about a week after the bachelor party. It was my duty to pick up the best man from the airport. “This is my chance to redeem myself!” I believed. Plus, I met the best guy – he was a nice single guy who works as a firefighter and was always up for a good time. All I had to do was entertain him for a few hours between picking him up at the airport and driving to training.

I arrived at the airport in my storm blue Toyota Scion tC, and right away, we decided that bar-hopping would be an excellent way to spend a few hours. And by the fourth or fifth tape, I knew we were definitely going to miss the training. We arrived as everyone was queuing up for the mock party, and I laughed hysterically as the best man was standing in the trunk of my car in his underwear, changing into his shorts and T-shirt into formal wear for the evening’s function.

We all watched as we drunkenly run across a field to the ceremony site just as rehearsals ended. My sister narrowed her eyes and stared at me.

Luckily, my sister was very upset with my mom for doing things like making suggestions she didn’t want to hear, so she chose to accompany me to the rehearsal dinner so she could complain about the pain our mom was going through.

My salon appointment became the “Walk of Shame.”

At the rehearsal dinner, I sipped water and was silent. I didn’t want to spoil another event with my drunken foolishness.

I managed to act like an efficient human being throughout the dinner. I just asked myself how someone who is sober, mentally stable and hasn’t gone through the trauma of their recent divorce would act.

My sister and her soon-to-be husband were so exhausted from the day that they left shortly after dinner. Most of the wedding party, myself included, decided to go into town for a few more drinks.

Shortly after midnight, I realized that the wise thing to do was to go home. So naturally I would invite myself to the best man’s room in the hotel for a nightcap. We sat at the foot of his bed, sipping from the shared bottle of red wine we had poured on the white sheets and duvet while eating the sweets we had stolen from the front desk.

The next day, I woke up in a panic. All I had to wear was my dress and heels from the night before, and I had an early morning salon appointment with my sister, my mother, and the other bridesmaids.

The best man offered to escort me to my car, and as we were making our way through the hotel lobby, I noticed that all the guests who had flown into town for the wedding were eating breakfast and staring at us. I was there in my dress and my heels from the night before, and I didn’t look good. Two men from the wedding party smiled knowingly at us.

I felt out of place, to say the least, as I wore heels and a cocktail dress to my 8am hairdresser’s appointment. My sister shook her head when she saw me. At that point, I think, she was relieved to be there.

I stopped the ceremony when the groom’s ring got stuck on my finger

After our date, we all gathered in the limo, where I stocked my sister with as many mimosas as I could, hoping she might not mind stopping at my apartment so I could shower as quickly as humanly possible and grab my purse. dress.

When we finally got to the wedding venue, my sister handed me her husband’s wedding ring and said, “No, don’t lose, this.” In hindsight, I was surprised that she trusted me at that point.

The good news is that I didn’t lose the ring – The bad news is that it got stuck on my middle finger, which I mistakenly thought was the safest place to keep it.

When the officer asked for the rings, my family and my sister’s in-laws looked on as I stood at the altar next to my sister struggling to get the ring off, finally using my teeth to free it from my finger. My sister didn’t seem amused.

My wedding toast turned out to be epic

After that, I promised myself that I would not cause any more shenanigans. I realized I needed to hold my ground until my speech, and then my maid of honor duties would be fulfilled. I hardly had more than a sip of wine throughout dinner because I planned to perform an off-the-cuff speech. I needed to be sharp.

I can’t describe the look on people’s faces during their toast. Their reactions were somewhere between confusion and disbelief, as I was talking about how I hated my brother-in-law when I met him and hoped I could break them up. During my speech, all you could hear was several of the men from the bridal party choking out their uncontrollable laughter.

I knew my speech was over when my sister took the microphone out of my hand. This was when I started reading stories from our childhoods, like how my sister used to peel and chew gum from under tables in random restaurants.

The best part of the evening was when one of my bridesmaids told me her husband overheard a group of men in the bathroom talking about my early morning walk of shame through the hotel lobby. I secretly wished that would be a nightmare.

Aside from one of the bartenders catching me and the other bridesmaid drinking a bottle of tequila in the shower, the rest of the evening was fairly uneventful.

My sister cared for me more than mishaps

The next morning, my sister and her husband left for their honeymoon. I spent most of the day treating a monstrous hangover and wondering if she hated me as much as the time I destroyed her UGG boots or when I put my car in her boyfriend’s new Mustang.

Surprisingly, my sister called me the next day of our honeymoon to see how I was doing. You recognized me He was struggling to accept my recent divorceWhich included living alone for the first time and dealing with a lot of financial issues. Somehow, she was able to look past all of my bad behavior and empathize with my situation.

That was over eight years ago, and since then we’ve had a number of conversations about the unfortunate timing of my divorce and her wedding. I’ve made many apologies to her for my antics, but I still carry a lot of guilt for how I acted during such a special time in her life.

Not to mention I also owe her about $1,500 for a bachelor party in Vegas that I had to pay for.

Fortunately, my sister and I are closer today than ever, and I am the proud aunt to her two adorable – soon to be three – daughters. I often joke with her that if I remarry, she has my blessing to act as badly as she wants!