Bridesmaid Spot Auctioned Off on eBay

There’s no predicting what will appear on eBay, demonstrated this week by the bride looking to defray the cost of her April 2009 wedding by auctioning off a bridesmaid spot in her wedding party, which sold for $5,700.

I would have happily paid a substantial amount to get out of being an attendant, each time feigning excitement and pretending to be flattered as I’d add yet another useless, pastel-colored gown to the collection in my closet along with uncomfortable, pointed toe, dyed-almost to-match silk pumps. The bride, Kelly Gray, a Virginia Beach hairdresser, has selected apple red bridesmaid dresses, a color that flatters almost no one. I know because I had to wear it on three occasions if I was to get my share of the chopped liver mold.

There was no eBay when I got married, so I could not have auctioned off a spot in the wedding party or the chance to tag along on our honeymoon, which will likely appear soon as an auction item. What next? Will we be seeing the vice-presidential spot auctioned off on eBay?

A reason not to get married young: my cousin, who’d introduced me to an amazingly mature and dashing twenty-nine-year-old when I was twenty-three, a guy who swept me off my feet (blistered from too many bridesmaid shoes), just ran into him forty years later and reported, “He’s obese, wears clogs, and the worst thing … he’s a Republican!”