So, obviously, I’ve never been married and I’ve never even really entertained the whole big wedding dream idea. It’s safe to say that even if I was going to get married, the whole wedding industry would collapse if they were relying on my business. The spectacle, the attention, the formality – I usually don’t even like going to weddings.

When my 50 Crazy Things list came up it was a bit of a joke that I should wear a wedding dress before my 50th birthday, even though at the time I hadn’t even gone on a date in years. I planned to wear a white running outfit with a white tutu and veil at a Colour Me Rad race but I couldn’t get the dates to work so I let the idea go until Jody Lenarcic, Krista Dick, Monica Williams, Trisha Cooper and I started planning our girls weekend at the Rock N’ Roll 10K in Vancouver in October. We were thinking of costumes and suddenly I got the idea that I could go as a Rock n’ Roll bride and that would satisfy the crazy thing. Well, apparently you can’t have a bride without bridesmaids! When I asked them if they would be willing to participate in my special day they all shouted “Yes!” and started pestering me about colour schemes – I was instantly overwhelmed.

The plan progressed and since I didn’t want them to go to a lot of expense for this, I said they should wear black and then they could put coloured tutus and accessories over top. I had transfers made for their shirts and I wore a white shirt and white tutu with some black accessories. Easy!

They each picked a colour and had hair things (name… kind of like a garland?), arm warmers, and skirts in their chosen colour. I made the transfers for their black t-shirts and at the last minute I had a stroke of brilliance (not even bragging!) – I looked for the font I knew must really exist and I was rewarded with much joy… the Iron Maiden font did exist… we were going to be the Bride and the Brides Maidens! It was brilliant! The front of their shirts said “Brides Maiden” and the backs said “We knew the bride when she used to rock and roll.” The front of my white shirt just said “Bride” and the back said, “Nice day for a white wedding.” I had a black veil, grey lace sewn to my waterbelt, a huge spider engagement ring, black lace arm things (name…I have no vocabulary for fashion), and we were all covered in tattoos… some were real… some, including all of mine, were fake. We also had plastic bouquets – all spray painted black. I have to say, we looked freaking awesome!

Conveniently the run is right before Halloween so we got great costume accessories at the Halloween Spirit Store and Value Village. Being frugal, we also realized that with a bit of tweaking we could use most of our accessories in our Sugar Plum Fairy costumes for the Santa Shuffle in December. Bonus!

The trip was a riot, as always. We had five women in a quint hotel room at the Y Hotel Residence in Vancouver. It was like a pajama party for the over 40 set and all five of us had our own beds. Monica expertly handled all the ironing duties for getting the shirts done and we all spent the night before the race eating rockets (Halloween candy… prerace carb loading), drinking a little bit, and having a blast. Huge shout out here to my neighbours Patty and Stacy who let me print all the shirt transfers on their inkjet printer since my laser printer wouldn’t cut it.

The morning of the race our costumes came together. Rock N’ Roll races are known for their costumes but this was pretty new to Vancouver so we didn’t know how many others would get into the spirit of the race – a lot did – including my future groom!

Wait for it….

We made our way through downtown Vancouver to the shuttle that would take us to the starting line. Already we were starting to turn some heads and get some laughs. The starting area in English Bay was a lot of fun. There were lots of costumes! We were getting our picture taken in front of the Inukshuk down by the water when we saw another group of costumed runners and in them was my future groom… Alice Cooper! A guy dressed as Alice was there and we had our picture taken with him. It turns out he belongs to a huge Running Race Costume group that I also belong to on Facebook and we both posted pictures later.

We also met Vancouver Sun sports blogger Gord Kurenoff, a former Kamloopsian, who included us in his blog. He’s an awesome guy and very inspirational.

As we ran the race Trisha went ahead as it was her first 10K and we didn’t want to slow her down. Monica and Krista run together so they took off too. Jody and I hung back and enjoyed running alongside women dressed as the Absolutely Fabulous duo and others. I have never had so much attention in a race – but a lot of people actually thought it was a staggette and I was really getting married. People were congratulating me all over the place. I tried explaining and finally Jody said to me, “Give up. Just say thank you!”

We finished the race and had a blast and that night, over dinner in Chinatown, we were already thinking of what we would do for next year – it will be hard to top Bride and the Brides Maidens!

Why was this crazy?

Oh please! Have you met me? I am seriously not the wedding dress type. So many people were excited that I was going to wear a wedding dress, though, until they saw what it looked like. Then their dreams of Vesta in a poofy wedding dress exploded in a burst of gothic-looking confetti.

Would I do it again?

Hell ya! Would I do it for real? Not bloody likely! Hue thanks to Jody, Krista, Monica, and Trisha for being the best bridesmaids EVER!