to be a bridesmaid

My best friend growing up (15 years!) is getting married a week from this Friday.

I cant believe it!

She was my Maid of Honor (almost 4 years ago!), and asked me to be one of her Matrons of Honor.

Honestly...i've only been a part of 2 weddings before that were not going to be in the temple. The first was when i was 16--I played the piano for their ceremony (cant actually believe i did that!), and the other I was the maid of honor, but we acted like it was more of a "mormon wedding" than not.

Well, this has been very different. First off, she got engaged almost a year ago. That's A LONG time. I've had her save the date on my fridge for like 7 months (i actually don't know for sure...but its been there for.ev.er).

The other matron of honor is her sister, and the other bridesmaids are a sister, and a future sister in law. (sisters know what she wants, and are able to just go ahead and do it, plus they are in more contact)

The bride and her groom bought a house together and have been living together for almost 6 months.

For her bridal shower, she had registered for bath towels...well we bought her all of the ones on her registry and when she opened them she exclaimed, "our extra towels for our guest bathroom!" for heavens sake, when i got married and we registered for towels it was because we owned NONE. lol

everything is just....different.

My duties are different...in the fact that i don't have a CLUE what my duties are. Seriously.

I've asked and asked what she wants me to do and since we don't see each other much, she hasn't really provided me with things that I can help with. However. I'm going to do my best to just BE there. That's the most important thing right? To make sure you help de-stress, to help fix flyaway hairs, running makeup, a tissue or 2 (i cried at my ceremony, and once at the reception) providing a honeymoon bag (that's my gift to her!), to write a cute toast, to not focus on the fact that my dress makes me look like a whale, helping decorate a get-a-way car and make sure that the groomsmen don't go TOO overboard with things, and letting her know she is loved. That's what it REALLY means to be a bridesmaid, right?