Toilet Paper Brides by Sharon O’Donnell


Last week, I attended a bridal shower for the fiance of a good friend. The groom is a good friend of my oldest son’s, and they grew up together. The mom of the groom is one of my best and dear friends, and the two of us were actually brought together by the friendship of the two boys in pre-school. It was this friend, Robyn, the mom of the groom, who along with her twin daughters, hosted the shower at her house. In addition to great fellowship and great food, we also participated in a few games like guessing whether it was the bride or groom who said certain responses to questions. One game was a quite creative one in which the 16 or so people there were divided into teams and give a couple of rolls of toilet paper with which to create toilet paper wedding dress for one member of their team. One of the people on my team said right away when we got together, “I know what to do, I got the vision as soon as she told us what we were going to do.” She then added, “Sharon, you be our model.” Now, I don’t exactly relish the thought of being a ‘model’ in front of people, most of whom I didn’t know, but the alternative was to actually have to create a toilet paper wedding dress, and I am not, shall we say, craft-oriented. And yes, this to me was a craft. I’d rather be standing there getting toilet paper wrapped around me than figuring out how to do the wrapping.

Thus, I wound up as a reluctant model for this ‘Toilet Paper Brides” game. And our group’s creator did indeed have a pretty good fashion idea of how to create a viable-looking wedding dress out of toilet paper. It came out kind of Greek-looking with some draping involved over the shoulder, but really looked pretty good. Still don’t know how she did it. When everyone was done with their creations, the models had to display the creation, sort of like on a fashion runway. As the five of us models lined up, I realized that all the other four toilet paper brides were A. The 21-year-old bride and B. friends of hers all near her age. And then there was me.

I had fun with it, though, and when displaying our toilet paper creation, I even stuck my leg out from under my ‘dress’, sort of like — but not much like — Angelina Jolie when she was on stage at an awards show last year and blatantly struck an awkward pose on stage with her leg sticking conspicuously out from her dress. My posed was sort of like Jolie’s because I got the awkwardness down pat perfectly, though I was sadly lacking in her other leg-showing attributes. Of course, I did have long black pants on underneath the wedding ‘dress’, so there was only so much I could do.

Later when I got home, I went in to check my email messages and take a quick look at my Facebook page. I discovered that horror of horrors — I had been TAGGED. Oh God, I thought, this can’t be good. And then I remembered while all of us toilet paper brides had been posing at the end of the game, there had been an inordinate amount of flash photography as women held up their cameras in a little group. A veritable horde of photographers.

Then I saw the photo above, and I thanked God it wasn’t a close-up. But I did post below the photo on Facebook the following: I did not know when I agreed to be a toilet paper model that there would be paparazzi. I am like a ‘what doesn’t belong in this photo’ – A good 30 years older than all the other brides!

  1. One Response to “Toilet Paper Brides by Sharon O’Donnell”

  2. Sharon, you sounded like such a great sport! The photos will be a memory, albeit happy ones, in years to come! I thought you looked like a beautiful “bride!”

    By Cara Potapshyn Meyers on Mar 5, 2013