Brittany Westerberg

Toward the end of your college career, one thing begins to happen more and more often: people getting married.

For those without a significant other or who just have yet to get married, there’s the joy of being a bridesmaid or groomsman. I’ve only been a bridesmaid two or three times in my life (if you count the time I was a flower girl/junior bridesmaid) but I have a friend who’s been a bridesmaid seven times already, and she’s only a junior in college. Being one isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, of course – you have to dress up and wear uncomfortable shoes and get your hair done and then just stand there the entire ceremony, telling yourself not to lock your knees so you won’t pass out, and wondering if you applied enough deodorant earlier that day or if you need to reapply before the wedding supper and dance. Your job is to stand there and make the bride look good. (That’s why bridesmaid dresses have the reputation of being ugly, gaudy things – you can’t be prettier than the bride, after all.)

Then there are those people who are closing in on that wonderful question. You have a significant other who you’ve been with for a while and could see yourself getting married to someday. Of course, then going to these friends’ weddings brings the ultimately dreaded question of “So, when are you two going to get married?”

I hate that question. My boyfriend and I have been dating for two and a half years, and we’ve gotten that question at every wedding we’ve been to for the last year and a half. At first it was said more jokingly, but now it’s become an honest question. His mom even asked him about it just last month. At his cousin’s wedding, we were asked five separate times about our impending doom, once even on the dance floor by the bride herself, where we thought we might be safe.

Because of all the friends I have that are engaged and because of all the pestering, the thought has run through my mind more than once in the past year. And while I know my boyfriend has good taste in jewelry (at least so far) I decided, well, maybe I’ll just figure out what I want in an engagement ring, should I ever receive one.

So I went to a Web site and decided to design my own ring, thinking it might be easiest. Then I found out that there are about 10 different shapes I can have my diamond in. Well, I have no idea what will look best on my hand, but I went ahead and chose round. Simple enough. I read underneath where you can select your diamond’s price range that the store has over 36,000 round diamonds ranging in price from $288 to $2,280,544! (If only I was dating a billionaire ?)

The next screen made you choose the carat, cut, color and clarity of the diamond. Then there were advanced criteria talking about polish, symmetry, depth percent, table percent, fluorescence, price per carat and culet ? whatever some of those are.

Let it suffice to say that I quit while I was ahead and decided to just let the boy worry about all of this stuff. That’s his job, right?

The moral of this story is, of course, that marriage is all well and good, but only when the timing is right and you are forced to deal with all of these decisions. All that worrying and planning just for one day can stay far away from me for now, though I’ll undoubtedly be doomed in the near future. Until then, I’ll stick with being a bridesmaid and worrying only about deodorant, being uncomfortable and remembering not to drink too much champagne.