A beautiful LA wedding

"you have the loveliest eyelashes, dear..." the woman in sky high black mules with a dramatic flower pattern is saying to me, and I'm smiling, "where did you get them?" And with the Gary Coleman look on my face, I'm thinking, um, in the mirror with a few coats of Maybelline? But I stop and look around - I'm standing next to a pool which has lilies and candles floating strategically in it (prevented from congregating over the filter with fishing wire), to my right is a lush grassy area with a looming lilac tree under which we've just seen two people get married in a sweet and poignant (and funny) ceremony; while to my left is the tennis court on which we'll sit for dinner at white tables with purple accents and mojito martinis. And I remember, I'm in LA, nothing is real. I'm at the home of the bride, where I've spent many hours lounging in this space and hanging in her parents' 8-headed shower (they weren't in it at the same time). And sure enough, I look closely and the woman's eyelashes are like daddy longlegs, and purple. And they are wicked cool, they make her eyes look green, and they are totally fake. And she may be dans un certain age but she's kicking it. "Oh, these old things? These are mine - I left the heavy duty ones at home!" And we laugh, and within minutes are talking about how fat can be injected into the balls of your feet to make it easier to wear stillettos, and I find myself considering whether I should have this done. And then I find myself referring to "my orthopedist" who, from the two times I saw him certainly seemed cool, but I doubt he'd like to hear me refer to him as I would a puppy. We're having a blast.

And the women are in perfect shape and you can't tell anyone's age and the men are tanned and all have hair and this is a scene to be remembered. But more importantly, we are at this fun and lovely wedding that isn't stuffy, mainly because the bride and groom are too offbeat to do this seriously - no one's freaking out about the purples coordinating. And Caro's mom officiated at the ceremony, making us laugh and think back to their first encounter a million years ago (she set them up). And then I think back to Caro, my Paris roommate, and meeting her at the salad bar in school in Cannes and when I was thinking about how when I was chatting up this cool girl picking at the tomatoes I couldn't have imagined that 9 years later, we'd be standing here, and how we have so many good stories to regale each other (and crowds) with, and that's really the point of friendship, knowing someone - in our case because we were far away from home and living in a small space without a lot of money and sharing a room that was like the Bat Cave, it was so dark - so you can tell funny stories about them and they about you which other people hear and exclaim "that's so true!"

And the party went on and the music shifted from Harry Connick Jr to dance music and we were perfectly chilly so sometimes we stood under the heat lamps, and so we ate a lot and danced a lot and then, whoops, the bartender left his post for about a minute so I took the liberty of bringing a few bottles of champange back to the table so we didn't have to walk the whole 10 feet to the bar. And the bride danced and her mom danced and we danced and all of a sudden, it was 1AM and we're cheering on the groom's rendition of "White Wedding" and there is no one else around. And we would've let them take away the heat lamps and kept dancing, but I'm sure a neighbor somewhere did not appreciate hearing that Dre song "California" (she played it for me, I used to play it - on tape, I think - in Paris) and we stumbled back to the Beverly Hilton, briefly considered crashing an Indian wedding, and unfortunately decided against it, and instead crashed in our very fluffy beds. And somehow made it to the airport the next morning.

All photos courtesy of 14th Girl friend and fellow wedding traveler, Lori, whose birdseye view is way more artistic than 14th Street Girl's. And she never puts her finger in front of the lens.