Between the Covers: Stories from My Bookcase

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Best Day of Someone Else’s Life by Kerry Reichs

BDOYL

I went somewhere last week where I anticipated having to wait awhile, so I grabbed a book from my growing to-be-read pile before heading out of the house. The lucky book was Kerry Reichs’ The Best Day of Someone Else’s Life.

Here’s a blurb from the book’s page at Harper Collins:

Despite being cursed with a boy's name, Kevin "Vi" Connelly is seriously female and a committed romantic. The affliction hit at the tender age of six when she was handed a basket of flower petals and ensnared by the "marry-tale." The thrill, the attention, the big white dress—it's the Best Day of Your Life, and it's seriously addictive. But at twenty-seven, with a closetful of pricey bridesmaid dresses she'll never wear again, a trunkful of embarrassing memories, and an empty bank account from paying for it all, the illusion of matrimony as the Answer to Everything begins to fray. As her friends' choices don't provide answers, and her family confuses her more, Vi faces off against her eminently untrustworthy boyfriend and the veracity of the BDOYL.

Eleven weddings in eighteen months would send any sane woman either over the edge or scurrying for the altar. But as reality separates from illusion, Vi learns that letting go of someone else's story to write your own may be harder than buying the myth, but just might help her make the right choices for herself.

Initially, I thought this was similar to 27 Dresses. The similarity was there, especially in the beginning, but soon enough you’ll find that it’s not just about a girl’s wedding fantasy.

If you think it’s crazy that Vi had to attend so many weddings, well, I happen to believe that it is possible. There is such a thing as wedding season. In my life, it happens to be now. I haven’t had to attend as many as she did, but there’d been quite a number of weddings in my life recently too. Around March last year, my best friend told me about her engagement and she got married March this year. In July 2009, a cousin who has been living in the States with his family (wife and kids) came home to give his wife a grand Church wedding. A few weeks later, another friend had her marriage blessed in Church with a fun wedding (some pictures here).Smile

A month later, August, I attended the wedding of a high school friend. In December, Alfred and I were at a work friend’s nuptials.

In March 2010, one of Alfred’s best buddies got hitched, as well as my best girl friend (mentioned above; these are two separate weddings). This July, it was another sweet girl friend’s turn to say I do (pictures in this post). It doesn’t end there. One more girl friend will be walking down the aisle next month. Smile

Then of course, there’ll be my brother’s wedding (this year), and God-willing, mine (next year).

See, if it isn’t wedding season, then I don’t know what it is. Smile

It wasn’t the craziness of all those weddings in the novel that got to me, it was how such amazing friends Vi has that did. Seriously. They have a regular Sunday night drinking session at Clyde’s and they almost always are able to dissect whatever crisis Vi finds herself in. Had Vi not found (spoiler alert!) her dreamy Man, it would have felt okay because she has her A-Team.

I also didn’t get turned off with weddings the way she did (in Pinoy speak, naumay sya sa kasal). But it did make me rethink about what I want to happen in what might be, the best day of my life. Who will be bridesmaids? How will we pay for all of it? Haha.

In the end, it isn’t the ceremony that’s thrilling, nor the festivities leading to the wedding or the after-party. It’s the knowledge that you’ve got the one that’s worth celebrating. I know that now, he knows it too. Who needs a grand wedding?

But it ain’t as easy to dismiss as that. Like many other girls, I have dreams of dreams of a beautiful and fun wedding too. I still do.

0 comments: