Mine, mine, mine!!

As you may have gathered from my previous posts, I love wedding dresses. So I couldn't resist one more entry about my search. Because Groomy reads this blog, I can't reveal the dress I finally chose, but let's just say I think he'll like it.

When we left off, I had spent approximately a month living and breathing wedding dresses. Designers' websites, blogs, pre-owned sites, Google image search - you name it, I was looking at it. I wanted to know everything that was out there, where I could try it on, and how it looked on real brides. My top contenders were all over the map including a mermaid, a trumpet, several with dropped waists, and a couple of ballgowns thrown in for good measure. How was I ever going to pick just one?

Lots of brides today wear more than one gown - perhaps a big, traditional dress for the ceremony and a sexy one for the reception. I didn't want to go that route. It seems excessive and many brides have told me that they didn't want to take off their gown that night, not even to put another fabulous dress on (or to go to bed, even!). So, I knew if I could only have one, it had to be "the one" that I'd never want to take off.

Many brides say that finding their dress is a magical experience. There are tears and smiles and puppies and unicorns shitting out rainbows. It's a powerful experience. Well, not for this bride. I'm not ooey-gooey, mushy, or sentimental. I hate romantic comedies and crack jokes over characters' poor clothing choices during touching scenes on TV. Having come in to this process with a notebook filled with dresses I wanted to try and very specific guidelines, I figured choosing one would be a fairly analytical process. I even toyed with a scoring system.

That went down the tubes when the saleslady zipped me into MY dress, and my stupid ass burst into tears. I stood on that insipid little platform they put munchkins like me on to simulate the normal height we'll never achieve (and where they put tall chicks so they can feel ever more superior) with actual tears running down my cheeks, completely ashamed of myself, repeating "Who the hell cries over a dress?" My bridesmaids, surprised and more than a little amused, came to the rescue with tissues and eye-makeup remover (Bridesmaiderson J is like a beauty-counter MacGyver, apparently).

And so, just like that, she was mine. It was all kind of perfect, actually. This was a dress I had specifically set out to try from the get-go, and met all of my qualifications, including budget, so I was not too surprised that it wound up being my dress. This wasn't even the first time I'd tried it on, and it had been dancing around in my head since our first encounter. What did surprise me was the jackass crying and the possessive feeling I developed for the dress. It's supposed to come in to the shop this month and I'm jiggling around like a toddler after a large fountain soda waiting for the call.

I guess when you find the one, you know it. Even if you're a cynical old curmudgeon like me!