Why I'm Getting Married

I'm getting married tomorrow.

I never wanted to get married - did I ever tell you that? I suspected that I might, eventually, but I never planned on it. I thought I'd age eccentrically into old Auntie Carrie, who emerges from solitude at every full moon bringing presents of pounds and pounds of peanut brittle and wearing a hat made out of a squirrel with wind chimes hanging off it.

But now I have old Uncle Sillybeard, who will sit on the porch and make fun of the neighbors with me and eat all my peanut brittle. I'm the luckiest girl in the world! I'll make him a hat made out of a flower pot, and in February we'll put a little stuffed groundhog in it.

So I guess getting married won't be as strange or frightening as I've always assumed. It seems a little like being alone, but with someone. Which, for an introvert, is about as nice as it gets.

Auntie Carrie's Beauty Tips

After months of trying out different products and remedies in my ongoing quest to look fresh and dewy as a summer morn, I would like to pass on my wisdom to you:

Wear yer dang sunscreen. Every day. I don't care if you're going outside or not, little missy. I worry every single day that there's skin cancer a-brewin' beneath this flawless facade, because I spent my youth in sunny California and only wore sunscreen sporadically. If I'd listened to my mother I'd be sittin' pretty with porcelain skin and nary a freckle in sight. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES, DEAR LITTLE ONES.

Auntie Carrie Recommends: Zinc oxide. Yes, you'll look like a clown ghost, but you'll be the one laughing when you're eighty years old and have the skin of a toddler.

Drink yer dang water. If I've learned anything, it's that your skin is shriveling every second of every day. Our fate as humans is to shrinkle (that is, wrinkle and shrink) into tiny raisin-people. Such is nature, and she is cruel. You can fight your destiny, slow its progress with creams and retinoids, but you can never fully stop it. So you might as well just drink water because it plumps your skin up a little bit and also keeps you from getting headaches and hangovers.

Auntie Carrie Recommends: A fresh woodland stream. Or a Brita filter.

Grow yer dang hair out. Then cut it off. Make a long wig. Now you can do whatever you want to the remaining hair on your head: cut it, dye it, give it a perm. Experiment all you like; if you make a misstep, just slap on the wig and  nobody will know the difference.

Auntie Carrie Recommends: Scissors + this course

All cosmetics have ridiculously long names. Seriously, it's crazy.

Auntie Carrie Recommends: Shorten yer names. That foundation isn't a member of the Hungarian royal family.

You will never find the perfect lipstick/primer/eye shadow/blush. As soon as you find one you sorta-kinda-maybe like, it will either be discontinued, reformulated, or found to cause cancer and the night blindness.

Auntie Carrie Recommends: Acceptance. Mourn that perfect lipstick and move on. We all must leave this world sometime, and makeup is no different. C'est la vie.




Image via Daly Beauty.

Hey!

This blog is the #6 result on Google for "auntie shenanigans at wedding"! It comes up beneath "Auntie Jen - Outrageous Pets & Videos," but higher up than "Tea and Scandal - The Good, Bad, and Ugly Truth About Wedding Shenanigans."

What an exciting, enticing title! It really seems like that one should be higher up - at least higher than a Pinterest board called Wedding Shenanigans. So if you'd like to support that page and improve its ranking, click here and scroll down to Tea and Scandal. But then maybe click on this blog too. We can't let Auntie Jen beat us.

Auntie Carrie Answers: Bingo!

Auntie Carrie is always here to listen. Don't trust any advice Mittens gives you, though. She's on meth.

Auntie Carrie is always looking for ways to make life a little more zesty. I keep a folder labeled "SHENANIGANS" in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet, and there I keep all my fun holiday recipes and magazine clippings from Cosmo about keeping things fresh 'n' funky in the boudoir.

The other day I read an article on The Buzzfeed about bridal showers and how tired and cliche they can be. "O-ho!" I thought. While I don't believe there's anything quite like an afternoon of sipping tea and watching a blushing young bride-to-be unwrap the tools with which she will keep her future house, I guess I understand where the young people are coming from. Bridal showers could stand to receive a fun 'n' fresh makeover. "And I know just the thing to liven up a tired old shower," I said to Mittens. 

Bingo!

Mittens hissed at me and lunged claws-first toward my neck, but I quickly dodged her and set to work making a mock-up. I filled the squares in with phrases like "Happy Couple," "The Big Day," and "So when are you having kids?" Guests mark a space if someone tears up or makes a wedding night innuendo, if they spot a jealous bridesmaid or hear a joke about shotgun weddings. Free Space is the toilet paper wedding dress game. 

Once I finished, I logged on to my AOL and typed in a search to see what kind of demand there was for this sort of game. To my dismay, I found that Bridal Shower Bingo already exists:

$7.95 for 60 CARDS on Etsy. Don't miss out!

But it's only about gifts! Now, why would anyone want a game of bingo confined solely to the gift-opening portion of a shower when they could have a game that lasts for the entire party? It doesn't make any sense!

"Mittens," I said, "this game is shallow and pedantic. Where's the zest, Mittens? Where's the zest? I'd like to see what The Buzzfeed has to say about it." 

So I wrote to the editor of The Buzzfeed to see if they would feature it in their next edition, perhaps setting the two versions side by side for a biting compare-and-contrast segment, but I've yet to receive a response, which either means the editor is supremely rude or the mailman is using our letters to wallpaper his shed again. 

In any case, if you would like a copy of my Fresh 'N' Funky Bridal Shower Bingo, please send me an electronic mail c/o: 

auntiecarrieanswers@gmail.com

Lancaster, PA 17603

Until next time!

Your faithful servant, 

Auntie Carrie

Image via The Telegraph.