Done deal

I have a wedding dress! Well, I don't actually have it because they had to order it, but I've paid for a wedding dress! (Hmm, significantly less exciting when put that way...)

Shopping for it was awkward - I hate having to give opinions on something the moment I see it; let me have some unmolested time to absorb, dammit - but seriously fun. I wish I could have spent twice as long there, actually, and it took us quite awhile. Given free reign, I would have tried on all sorts of crazy stuff. That one with the huge tulle (Project Runway vocab!) ballerina skirt? Yes, please! The one with doily-lace overlay? Sure. Slinky tube dress? Um, okay! It would have been great.

As it was, though, I got to try on everything that I was seriously considering and I think I came home with the far-and-away winner of the bunch. It was tough making the decision, though, because my parents really liked a different dress, one that I'd tried on earlier, and it was tough believing that they weren't seeing something I was missing. I like the dress they fell for, but I love the one I went with, and that seems to be just the way things should be.

But enough gushing, what about the unexpected observations? Clearly this wasn't the same as going to Old Navy and trying on jeans - totally new experience. Well, first I had to have a "shopping list" of dresses that I'd like to try on to start with (3, to be exact). Tough when you're working from pictures only - who knows how things will look on you instead of a model? Once you've got your 3, your "coordinator" goes to get ones for you to try. One of my choices was only available in size 16, but I tried it on anyway and my helper pinned up the back and sides so that the view from the front was similar to how it'd be with my real size (not 16).

The tough thing was that each dress got ranked against the current gold standard - better or worse? If it was worse than the best one so far, it got tossed. If not, it became the new best one to compare to. What made it tough was that there was often a ranking, not a good/not-good distinction. Like, I like this one more than the last one, but not as much as my #1 at the moment, and under this system none of that mattered: if it wasn't better than the current gold standard, back to the racks it went. Practical? Yes. Efficient? Yes. Tough to swallow? Yes!! Have I mentioned that I hate making decisions?

Perhaps most surprising, though, was all the stuff other than the dress that dress-buying and -trying comes with. Everybody looks good on their wedding day - it's practically a maxim of the occasion. I used to think it had something to do with happiness-glow, careful attention to detail, or something quasi-romantic like that. False, my friends: it has to do with underwear. Corset yourself up tightly enough, pushing certain things up to flattering places and smoothing over everything else, and put on a sufficiently poofy slip and pretty soon everything you put on starts to look damn good. Sure, it requires help to get you into your damn bra equivalent - not to mention the dress, which also is a two person operation - but it's enough to make it all seem like attractive casual wear.

The most amusing part of the whole day, though? My dad's comment: "God, that was awkward. Everywhere I looked there were women walking around fastening each other up, adjusting their breasts in their dresses and carrying underwear around. There wasn't anywhere safe to look except my feet!" Clearly, he is a prince among men for braving this feminine gauntlet for my sake. :o)