The scene: lunchtime on Wednesday. I had been attending the giant work picnic, except it was incredibly, hideously, unpleasantly super windy. So I left and headed to the CC to do some sewing. The room was already occupied by one woman who appeared to be making a lot of formal wear. Maybe around ten minutes after that, a manager comes in to do some work. And that's when chatting erupted because she asked us a question on pattern sizing. And then, well....

Let me tell you what this lady has going on her plate:
(a) full time student
(b) working FOUR JOBS
(c) is getting married in two weekends, in another state
(d) except all of the wedding stuff has to be mailed a week before the wedding and can't be taken on the plane, so really she's got like one week to do it,
(e) she's also MOVING right now
(f) and has a big homework assignment to do
(g) the wedding is right before finals/graduation, but at least all of that crap is after the wedding.
(h) it sounded like she basically had today and Sunday to make all of the stuff she had to make and then that's it.
(i) of course, nobody she knows here sews except for the bridesmaid that dropped out.

Let me tell you all of the stuff she wanted to make for her wedding:
(a) her dress
(b) five bridesmaid's gowns (let's just say they involved a lot of fancy/hard to sew fabrics, which she is already worrying about running out of)
(c) one flower girl dress
(d) one 5000-rhinestone-studded prom dress, owed to the photographer in lieu of payment for photos, which also has to be done by the same time as the wedding stuff because of course prom is the same day as the wedding.
(e) another fancy dress for her to wear after the ceremony (really, at this point, don't you have enough to do?!)
(f) chain mail jewelry for all in the bridal party (note: apparently she doesn't even know most of these people, I gather all but four folks at the wedding are from his side)
(g) corsets for all, though that, at least, doesn't HAVE to be done for the wedding per se. She only has to finish making her own bridal corset.
(h) "Oh yeah, and I still have to do the centerpieces!"

How much of that was done by the time I got there (about maybe 4-ish hours after she'd started, I think): she'd cut about 2 or 3 of the bridesmaids' dresses out.

Also:
(a) she sews for a living for one of her jobs
(b) she really hates sewing
(c) but it's cheaper to sew than to buy dresses. (I thought, "Um, thrift store? Buy cheaper dresses that aren't bridal wear? Maybe not insist that everyone match? It's doable.")

She really wanted to have a very super fancy wedding for her fiance, because he hadn't been married before and she had (though apparently minus the frills, which I guess she's making up for this time). I couldn't help but think if all of this was for a dude, he probably didn't care all THAT much that the entire wedding was handmade here.

I can understand her wanting to make up for the last wedding, I can understand her thinking she'd have more time to do it before the guy bought a new house. But... good lord, at some point YOU GOTTA PRIORITIZE and realize that you cannot physically do all of this shit yourself and get well, 10% of it done at this rate. I attempted to say this to her, but I don't think it went too far beyond "okay, so maybe I won't do all of the linings very nicely and everyone else's corset comes last." If she was the world's best supersewer I might think she had better odds, but she didn't sound miraculously superhuman in this regard either!

You know, this was the kind of idea I had in high school, back when I was taking Family Living class and had to design my own wedding (hah, like that's ever happening, right?). But even I realized that there is only so much crap you can do in a day, and only so much a freaking bride can DIY without losing her mind. And frankly, even if she was a stay at home fiancee without any sort of schooling or work going on, and she was sewing 24-7 from now until the last day to mail things out, it would be an extreme stretch to get those dresses done ALONE (much less the chain mail, corsets, and centerpieces).

I am not a fast sewer by any means. I get more disaster-prone the faster I try to sew. And fancy fabric (and corsets! jeebus!) also tends to have complications. And yet, I was debating if volunteering to help here would help the situation any. I eventually concluded that well, probably not at this rate, especially if I crapped something up. (At any rate, I had to go back to work that day.) If the lady by chance shows up at the CC again when I am there diddling about on my own projects, I might consider it, but it sounded like she was just here for the day renting the table space for cutting and would finish the rest at whatever house she's currently living at.

Afterwards, on my way out the door, I found the manager:
Me: "I just met the most insane crafter in the world upstairs."
Manager: "I KNOW."
Me: "Cannot believe she is doing THAT MUCH STUFF."
Manager: "Yes, and she keeps wasting time talking about it, too."

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