Ever since I got engaged, Mary and Molly have been bugging me about going wedding dress shopping. Originally, I had planned to just get a pretty, semi-formal type dress and get married in that. I'm not getting married in a church, so the semi-formal thing seemed appropriate. Plus, I just couldn't see spending all that money on a dress I'm only going to wear once.
And then I got engaged. And I started having wedding dress fantasies. Where did that come from? I have no idea. I tried to force myself to be realistic. A fancy dress that wasn't a wedding dress would be fine. At least I could wear it again when I...had all those times where I needed to wear a fancy dress. Wait, I never have to wear a fancy dress. When was the last time I wore a skirt, even? I can't remember. Maybe a fancy dress isn't that good of an investment. And then my mom offered to pay for my wedding dress, so I didn't even have that excuse anymore. And I realized that there is a part of me that really wants the big white dress, and I shouldn't be ashamed of that, and it will be my only chance to wear a wedding dress, so I should take it! So there! I don't know why I feel the need to defend my desire for a wedding dress.
Once that decision was made, my mom agreed that it made sense for me to go shopping with Mary and Molly to narrow down the choices, and then she would come out later and help me make the final decision. So I made an appointment at David's Bridal because they have the cheapest dresses in town, and they also carry a wide range of sizes. Most bridal places only carry one size (usually 10, which is really a 6 or 8) and if it doesn't fit you, too bad! You just have to hold it up to yourself and try to get an idea of how it might look if it actually fit. No, thank you.
The day of the appointment, I was kind of nervous. What if all of the dresses looked terrible on me? Then what would I wear? I went to get my haircut that morning and had my hairdresser put my hair up so that I could see how it would look with the dresses. It kind of looked like I had my hair in a banana clip, which is a look I haven't sported since about 1988. But I didn't really care. I got the general idea.
Mary greeted me at the door but Molly was running late. I sat down and gave some information to the attendant, and then she showed us over to the rack where I could pick out some dresses to try on. The attendant was already helping another woman, so she left us alone to peruse the styles. We picked out three very quickly. Since I didn't have any particular style in mind, I wanted to try on a variety of dresses to get some idea of what I liked and what was flattering to me. We found my attendant, and got a dressing room, and started the process.
An aside: if you've never tried on wedding dresses before, be forewarned that it's quite an ordeal. First, you have to have appropriate shoes, which the salon will probably lend you. Then, you have to have appropriate undergarments, which will usually include a strapless bra. I brought my own, but they will also lend you this if need be. Then, you have to put on a giant petticoat like Scarlett O'Hara or something. They lend you this as well, but try to make friends with someone who already owns one before your wedding, because those suckers are expensive. Once you have the proper foundation, you can actually try on a dress. It's a two-person operation. One person takes the dress out of the bag, unzips it, and holds it open. Then I had to dive in from the bottom up, and try to emerge out the top, like some phoenix rising from lacy ashes, all the while struggling to find the armholes and hoping like hell that I didn't get makeup on the dress or rip a seam or something. And all this in a dressing room only slightly larger than a standard dressing room, plus you have two other big puffy dresses hanging on the walls, plus your street clothes and other assorted crap sitting on the floor. It's quite taxing.
I put the first one on and walked out. Molly had arrived by then, and she and Mary were looking through the pictures that I had ripped out of various magazines of styles that I liked. I had set up this joke about three weeks earlier and then forgotten about it. As I ripped each picture out of the magazine, I would make a note on it regarding what exactly I liked about that particular dress -- the neckline, the detailing, the sleeves, whatever. So then I ripped out this one picture of this seriously fugly dress, and wrote next to it, "Just kidding!" and stuck it in with the others. As I was in the dressing room getting into a dress, I heard Mary and Molly burst out laughing. My joke paid off. It was like a joke grenade. Heh. I don't really remember the first dress, so I guess that's all you need to know about that. Mary and Molly kept picking out more dresses. More women arrived, so my attendant was missing in action. When we finally saw her again, Molly asked if she could help me, and the harried attendant readily agreed. That sped up the process considerably. Once you walk out of the dressing room, there's like a stage that you stand on with mirrors all around. And then there's a tiny square platform that you get up on, so that you can see how the dress falls, because they generally make them way too long so that they can turn around and charge you for hemming.
Mary and Molly actually convinced me to put on a tiara at one point. Yeah, you heard me. A tiara. I will not be wearing a tiara when I get married. It's just not me. I can see the appeal -- as with the dress, how many opportunities do you have in regular life to wear a tiara? But it just wasn't me. Mary and Molly loved it though. I think they have princess fantasies.
This one dress that I tried on was totally confusing. I had seen a lot of pictures of a particular dress in magazines, and it looked really pretty, but I was sure that it would look terrible on me. Still, I was up for some adventure, so I tried it on. It had a corset-like bodice, with tiny spaghetti straps, and then a huge tulle skirt. I noticed that in all of the pictures, the model was sitting down. When I put the dress on, I realized why. That thing was about two yards wide! I could barely get out of the dressing room without turning sideways. How would someone walk down the aisle in that? They would be brushing the sides. I started laughing the minute I walked out. Molly, of course, loved it. See above re: princess fantasies.
I finally found a dress that I really liked. It somehow managed to make me look skinny and curvy all at the same time. I continued to try on more dresses though, because it's really all about the comparison. Mary and Molly picked them out for me, based on the pictures I had chosen, and I mostly stood around and tried not to sweat in the dresses while I waited.
Finally, we decided to try to get pictures of me in the top two dresses. A lot of bridal places don't let you take pictures, because they are afraid that you will take the picture to a dressmaker and have him or her make you a cheap knockoff. I don't know what David's policy is -- we didn't ask. We just decided to be sneaky about it, since my attendant had stopped paying one bit of attention to me about forty-five minutes earlier. So Mary went and stood inside the dressing room and turned the flash off on my camera and took a picture. That worked out so well that we decided to get a picture of my number one dress.
I went in and (with Molly's help) put it on. I walked out and got on the little platform. Mary snuck inside the dressing room and prepared to take my picture. But something was wrong with the camera. I rushed over to try to fix it, and then walked back out to the platform. Of course, my attendant chose that moment to actually care about what the hell I was doing. So she was standing on the other side of the (open) dressing room door, talking to me. I could see her, but I didn't know if Mary could, so I was all, "Yeah, I really like this dress," and trying to give Mary the hairy eyeball so she would know something was up. I told my attendant that we had picked a few dresses that I definitely DID NOT want, and hung them on a hook outside the dressing room, hoping that she would gather them up and take them away, thus affording us the opportunity to snap one last picture. Instead, she decided to go into the dressing room (where Mary was standing) and see if there were any other rejected dresses in there to be put away. Mary quickly hid the camera behind her back. I'm sure the attendant was wondering why the hell Mary was standing inside the dressing room, but whatever. I tried to think of a way to get the attendant out of there, and all I could come up with was, "Okay, I guess I'm ready to put my regular clothes back on now. Molly, can you help me out of this dress?" The attendant took off, but now I was stuck inside the dressing room, which was too small to allow any picture taking. Molly came to the rescue by saying loudly, "Wait! I just want to see you in that dress one more time because I LOVE IT!" And she pulled me back out onto the platform. Mary took the opportunity to snap a picture. Except in all the hullabaloo, somehow the flash got turned back on. So there was this big flash. So obvious. No one said anything though, and the three of us just started giggling, and Molly kept calling Mary "Flash Gordon" and it was hilarious. We're like a train wreck.
A lot of my friends were like, "Don't let Jim see those pictures of you in your dress! You'd better hide them somehow!" I don't really get that. First of all, if he does see the pictures, does that mean we can't get married? I mean, they're nice pictures and all, but they're poorly lit, and I'm kind of sweaty and gross-looking having tried on about a billion dresses that day. I hope I don't look like that on my wedding day! And second, hiding them assumes that Jim gives a rat's ass what my wedding dress looks like. I mean, he loves me and all, but he really doesn't care. I'm sure on our wedding day, he'll tell me that I look pretty, but I don't think the dress will make that big of a difference. Is he going to see the dress and go, "Oh, I'm sorry. I can't possibly marry you if you're wearing THAT! I prefer more tulle and less beading." No. He's not. And he's not going to look for the pictures. I do want it to be kind of a surprise in a Makeover Story kind of way, which is why I didn't post the pictures here for all and sundry to see. But if you want to see them, just e-mail me.
So now I just have to wait for my mom to come out and go shopping -- probably next week. We booked the place and the DJ, and I'm working on a photographer. And centerpieces. Oh, and we're STILL waiting to hear about our mortgage, and now our sellers want to move the closing date further away. Sigh. I don't know if we'll ever get into that house! But I'll keep you posted.
This isn't really an entry proper. Just some more childhood pictures that I scanned in and wrote comments about. Just keep in mind that these are in no particular order, but in the captions, I tried to identify how old I was in the picture. Anyway, click here to begin. Enjoy!