Miss Unsubtle quit with five weeks to go. A drawn out process following over a year of "It's my wedding! It's my life!"

I remain. Reluctantly.

December 2006. "I'm engaged! Look at the ring! Groom-to-be-of-Bridezilla got it from Charles Rose! Will you be my bridesmaid? My chief bridesmaid?" Screams and hugs followed.

February 2007. At a bridal expo, "This is my chief bridesmaid, Polly."

May 2007. Through tears in a busy cafe, "I'm trying to make everyone happy! I'm trying to please everyone! It's going to be a pink dress!"

July 2007. "Oh Polly! Thank you for finding my wedding dress with me!"

August 2007. "I don't care about the starving kids in Africa! The photographer is $6000 and he's GOOD!"

December 2007. To Miss Unsubtle, "Sometimes, I think Polly only wanted to be my bridesmaid because she's in competition with Tuck Shop Lady Arms (TSLA)."

January 2008. "If I was the bridesmaid, I would have all weekends in the two months leading up to the wedding free for the bride. Polly should have told me that she has a wedding to attend on the day I want to have my Hens."

February 2008. "Miss Unsubtle, I am not unreasonable, I am selfless. It's not like I have been a bridezilla. Just get along with my lovely friend who called you and Polly manipulative. It's my wedding. Just be happy for me. It should be about me."

February 2008. "I can't believe Miss Unsubtle just quit."

February 2008. "I never wanted Polly to be my chief bridesmaid. If I had a choice, it would have been Arse Crawler."

February 2008. "Polly, TSLA is going to be Miss Unsubtle's replacement. I always wanted her to be the bridesmaid but you were uncomfortable about it because she used to go out with The Boy. I'm just selfless like that."

March 2008. "Polly, I've paired Arse Crawler with the Best Man because she is the only one who is married. All my bridesmaids are the same to me. There's no chief bridesmaid. What? Oh that ceremony program just says Arse Crawler is the Matron of Honour, but all my bridesmaids are the same to me."

A rather good summary of events. So come Sunday next week, as the Wedding March plays and TSLA waddles down the aisle...

The Boy thinks to himself, "I tapped that."

And as I gracefully glide toward the alter...

The Boy thinks smugly to himself, "I'm tapping that."

It is like rain on your wedding day. A black fly in your chardonnay.

"So what are you?"

I have always envied those who can answer this in a long-winded way to include every continent on earth and throw in various mix of spices in quarters or eighths, or even sixteenths. My friend, Ms Pants Advocate, can list over half of the UN Security Council in her blood stream.

Being just full-blooded anything seems so...dull.

On a recent trip to China with my parents, a revelation came one night out at dinner in Chengdu.

"Dad! Let's do the family tree when we get home!" I excitedly said. Earlier, we had visited an elderly relative who revealed all the glory of the old family. Oxford scholars, renowned surgeons and crazed artists abound in the thick volume of my paternal grandmother's family tree.

"Pfft!" My fat cousin scoffed at the idea.

"We're not doing YOUR family tree. We're doing OURS!" I scoffed back. He's on my mother's side of the family and thus we don't share the same surname.

"Sometimes, you find things things you don't want to know, " he retorted quietly.

Given my limited mastery of the Chinese language, all I could come up with was very loudly, "I DON'T CARE!" and a pout.

My outburst was met by silence around the dinner table. Momma and Pappa looked embarrassed. We don't know what drugs she's been taking while on her own in Melbourne, we might need to have a quiet chat with her later, the look on their faces revealed.

And then the silence was broken by my cousin.

"You want to find out about how your grandfather's mother was not even his mother? The old man was illegitimate! The woman was a sing-song girl who became a concubine!"

"What?!" This was obviously news to my mother as well. At that point I couldn't tell if she was upset or confused.

"See, you don't want to play with history," fat cousin emphasised again.

Silence ensued while plates of Szechuan delicacies were brought to our table. I picked at the green peppercorns and stole looks at my mother in between. I wondered, what was the psyche of a woman who just found out her much admired father was a bastard?

"Well. That could explain why he was an outrageously good-looking man." She finally said, with a hint of smugness.

"The old man was still a bastard." Fat cousin insisted.

"Shut it!" I said defensively of the man who caught a tortoise for me the first time we met. "He was still your grandfather."

The uncomfortable silence continued.