my first wedding

It remains to be determined whether or not I am good at faking it when I'm out of my element. I've been told I'm good at visibly keeping my cool with gigantic crushes or when I'm nervous in social situations, but usually I kind of doubt it.
My friend Shonelle's wedding was the first wedding I'd been to without my family besides my friend Danielle's grandmother's wedding several years ago, and definitely the first friend-friend of mine to get married. Since the guest I RSVP'ed to bring turned out to be wishful thinking, I was kind of nervous about coming solo.
I didn't really know anyone who would be there, so I had to guess about everything, like gifts and how to dress and everything. I let myself get talked into wearing this big, fun dress by my mother and sister which I had a pretty good feeling would put the over in over-dress(ed). But since I adore dressing up, I had to take the opportunity.
I had to do my hair to go with the over-dressed, and of course I don't know what I'm doing since I missed out on that chapter of girl 101 and neglected to make up the credits in sorority 101 or anything like that. I spent a while just figuring out how a curling iron worked and I was running late, but my parents were like, "Don't come on time, they won't start till at least a half hour to an hour in, you'll just miss the welcome cocktail."
I showed up maybe 40 minutes late, and saw everyone hanging around (and I of course knew no one) so I dipped a carrot stick in dip and walked around. In the next room I saw Shonelle glamorous, beaming, stunning, and I tried to tell her so.
I very un-smoothly asked when things were getting started and her face dropped, confused.
Uh-oh, did I miss it?
Everything.
They started on the dot.
"That's okay! That's okay!" she said, because she's so sweet like that.
Boy did I feel like a jackass. I guess I shouldn't have trusted my parents on that one, after all they do operate on IST (Israeli Standard Time).
I saw a friend of Shonelle's who I'd met once at UCLA, and introduced myself (she'd of course forgotten me). I was feeling seriously stupid (and did I mention overdressed?) and I couldn't get conversation to pick up. I took down a glass of champagne and some cheese and crackers, took a deep breath and plunged head-on into a conversation, introducing myself to everyone.
I don't think people believe that I actually have social anxiety, because the way I cope with it is by all-out sending the opposite signals out and hoping for the best while consuming alcoholic beverages, if possible.
Luckily, this was a great strategy at a wedding where I didn't know anyone. Since there were so many couples and married 24-year-olds, I didn't want to just abandon ship with the single girls if conversation didn't take off. I was pretty persistent with the 5 single people I met, and by the time we were seated we were all like old acquaintances.
So I ended up having a fun time, sat at a table with some nice people and swapped stories, even might have made a couple of friends.
I'm starting to wonder how many times I have to have certain experiences before I can actually start to feel confident about my ability to be awesome in them and not be nervous. At least, in dating it doesn't appear to be possible yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting there in the business meeting scene and the wedding scene.

Spent the day Saturday with the engineer, walking and talking. We went to the Jazz festival, ate Burmese food, sat at the park and walked like a hundred miles. So fun!