Bridezilla and the wedding fever

Engaged homeboys/wedding dates
Alicia and Matt (August 2006)
Jessa and Mike (?)
Ginny and paramour (?)

People I predict will get engaged in the next year
Bryan and Alexis
Kimra and Pete
Two Indian couples I know

It's getting dangerous; weddings seem to be everywhere. Delhi, as always, is shaadi crazy; I've gotten two wedding invitations this year (yes, 2006) from people at work.

I've also spent (very drunken) night with Mike and Jessa, poring over the wedding planning book she received by some well-intentioned relation or another. These events are big business, whether you're selecting saris for your mother-in-law in India or picking the perfect invitation (as well as tactful wording to tell your exiled father that he shouldn't come because his drunkenness might cause a stir) for a wedding in the States.

My sister Alicia, with whom I am closest, recently got engaged, which inspired me to make plans for a triumphant return to Oregon so I can be, again, a bridesmaid (never a bride!). I am so, so happy for her, and am more excited about the wedding than I was for my brother's (which I missed as he didn't set the date until after I planned to move to India). It's a very girly thing, I suppose, but I guess I'm an adult now, and mature enough to think about things like gala soirees without getting all weepy eyed that I'm too young and too frivolous and too damned flaky to ever have my own wedding.

I'm the only unmarried person in my generation of Freys -- Casey tied the knot with John, Dan with Laura, Niles with Alexis, Nick with Katie, Erin with a golfer (before she died), and finally, Jesse with Angie. Very strange sensation. I feel a bit of pressure to get hitched before my maternal grandparents die, because it would be so depressing without them (although they're already preparing for the eventuality that they'll see my nuptials only from the great beyond -- my grandmother has already given my mother my wedding present, a beautifully carved spice cabinet like the one she's given my mother, my aunts, and all the other obnoxious married folk of the clan).

Here's to checking "single, never married" on census applications and visa forms. But if anyone wants to woo me with a nice diamond ring, you know...I wouldn't really object.