Always a bridesmaid

A close friend or family member of mine (feels like a sister, maybe?) is getting married. I don't know who this close friend represents in real life; she doesn't resemble anyone I know. It's the day of the wedding and I'm some kind of bridesmaid, getting ready frantically and trying to help set up decorations.

We're running late and the wedding nearly starts while I am still hanging halfway out of my dress and trying to get my hair fixed up. I beg everyone to please slow down and delay the start so I can finish getting ready. The hectic feeling is overwhelming. Finally I'm done getting dressed (and I look like some kind of cracked-up hayseed with my insanely messy braided hairdo) and we can commence the marryin'. We head toward the altar, which is presumably down some sort of hall, but the landscape of where we are keeps morphing and changing and we never get to where we are trying to go.

It's now an hour after the wedding's scheduled start time and the bride and her party are getting increasingly frustrated and desperate because we don't know what's going on. We're carrying tons of balloons and ribbons with us and getting our fancy dresses all dirty and sweaty.

I get riled up and tell the bride to call the venue and demand a full refund, and then give her lots of "you go girl!" encouragement as she rants on the phone.

Bad weather and a wedding

My father instructs me to get all gussied up; we're going to a wedding in less than an hour, and would I mind getting ready even earlier because we have to stop by the store for something on the way? The wedding is happening at the Parkers' house. I played softball with the Parker girls throughout my school years and we were always good friends (I've not seen or spoken to any of them in years; I don't think they're on Facebook). Apparently Faye (Jo Ann's mom) has cancer (that's true in real life) and even though Jo Ann just met this guy thirty minutes ago, they're getting married immediately and everyone's got to get dressed up to come to the house and watch it.

So I do my best to put my dress on and look pretty and it's tense because we're running late because of me. We pile into the car and my cousin Keri — a younger version of her — has to sit in my lap and I'm afraid she's getting mud on my skirt because she's just a kid.

The weather has started to get nasty out and we are trucking it over backwoods hills, topping them with no tires on the ground, screaming for my mother, who's driving, to be more careful each time we meet another speeding vehicle at the crest of the hill. We have so many close calls that eventually something happens and we're all exposed to the elements and we're wet and my hair is all effed up.

The sky is the heaviest color of dark grey, like it's ready to just flatten us all.

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I'm in a high rise, in what I've come to understand is my editor in chief's office. It's super swanky, with its own little breakfast stand and attendant in the lobby. There are jars of candy on the stand, as well as doughnuts. The office is sparsely decorated, but seems incredibly, frighteningly open because it's surrounded completely by giant plate glass windows. And glass for a ceiling. The storm is still raging outside and I wonder who would want to work in a place like this when the weather gets sour. I notice a small, black, high-walled, completely enclosed cubicle. It is there that the editor actually keeps his desk, I discern.

I imagine a tornado sucking the entire thing out the window and carrying it across the fields that surround the building.

Something borrowed, something ... doesn't add up

I dreamed that my mother was planning some sort of all-day extravagant wedding celebration for herself and her new husband. They were going to get married in the morning, kick back and relax in the afternoon, then have a huge celebratory reception at night.

This night thing was supposed to be black tie. In my mind, I had already picked out what dress my mother should wear. It was daring but it's elegant. It was also very expensive.

My mother, on the other hand, was worried about costs and seeming snobbish spending all this money. So she picked out this kimono looking shapeless dress with pants underneath. It was white with black designs on it and it looked like pajamas. I mean it was like polyester made up to look like silky fabric with folds and creases still in it. And the pants underneath are just a smidge too short from where they should be.

Then she's wearing these abominations she called "shoes" that looked like she was trying to cover up bandaged feet and still wear wedge heels.

All this leads me to the conclusion that my mother is crazy and doesn't want to go through with the ceremony.