This problem is called wedding dress shopping.
I should start by saying this is the part of this whole belabored process I was LEAST looking forward to. I have made approximately 10 visits to various bridal shops, and if I must say so, the first couple were just as painful as I thought they'd be. I am no size 8 frame, and that is pretty much the size all sample dresses come in, so it was pretty frustrating to try to "visualize" what I might look like if my chest WASN'T exploding out the top of a tiny frame of fabric. Or if a drop waist weren't resting itself somewhere around my clavicle. This picture pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:
Her name was Lola. She was a Showgirl.
Then. THEN. This wonderful thing happened. I went to a few bridal shops where they were NICE and not PUSHY and would somehow miraculously engineer a sample size onto my body (granted with various clips and such) and I could kind of see, if I squinted really hard, that it might be fun to wear a wedding dress. Before this I had resigned myself to the idea that breathing, on your wedding day, TOTALLY OPTIONAL. After a few dresses that didn't make me cringe, I kind of started to enjoy this process. Maybe I started enjoying it too much. Because at this point, I question every decision. I found a dress that I liked, was in the budget, not what I pictured to start off, but she fits well (even in the sample size which, come on, that is pretty much the equivalent of a regular-size 6 girl being told she just squeezed into a double zero), we'll call her Penelope. Penelope would whisper sweet nothings in your ear.
Every rule I had at the beginning before trying on dresses (no strapless, no lace, no veil, no mermaid cut) went completely out the window once I started finding dresses that some how might work. And then we, on a fluke, went to one of the most expensive bridal shops in the Greater Texas area, and it went downhill from there. The dresses, the most beautiful compilations of silk and satin and hand-made lace I had ever seen in my life. You wanted to lay newborn babies on a cloud of these soft and puffy marvels of fashion. Ofcourse, ever dress at the store, nearly brought me to tears with its exquisiteness.
And then I realized that this had created a monster, and there is no crying in baseball!
Because after hmming and hawing over the choice of having the most beautiful wedding dress in all the land (which will be worn only once), or sending any possible children I might have to college (that's what scholarships are for, right?), I have begun to question EVERY dress. I realized that maybe the guilt of depriving children of a college fund (or the fact that eating Ramen for the next decade might not suit Andrew) was not worth this dress, and just MAYBE, I was creating this dilemma in my head (what? the head of a crazy person? NEVER.)
I will not rest until every shop in this state is scoured, just to make 100% sure I'm making the right decision if I get Penelope. Apparently, this disease I have is called being a "Maximizer" (needing to eliminate every possibility in order to make an informed decision). So the next few weeks are a fevered effort to see it all, bridal shop style. There will be traveling, and sweating, and lots of running around dressing rooms in the nude. Wish all those in attendance luck.
1 comment:
Two things to say:
1) Your wedding day dress is worth every penny... even if you can't count as high as the number of pennies you will have to pay.
2) The only reason you should settle for a less expensive dress is if you love it as much as the expensive dress AND it costs $10
(but I'm not sure you want to take my advice as I thought it was a good idea to throw up throughout my wedding :P)
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