The Day of the Dress

At the age of 3 I had my wedding planned out. I was going to wear pink and my bridesmaids were going to wear white. My mother tried to explain to me that it was the other way around, but I wasn't having it. I wasn't confused. I knew how it was supposed to go, but pink was my favorite color and I wanted to wear it. I remember playing in my mom's veil and telling myself that I was going to wear it in my wedding. Clearly I had no concept of changing styles or how easily things fell apart the older they got. I also remember NEVER liking the traditional "Here Come the Bride" song. Sing with me..."here comes the bride. big fat and wide!" Who didn't sing this song growing up? I don't even know the real words! One Halloween I was a bride, as I'm sure most little girls are at least one year of their life. I made my mom put makeup on me, I had white gloves, and frilly little white socks with my white dress shoes. I remember feeling so beautiful and perfect. I got to have that feeling again today.

When you walk into a bridal shop as a little girl it can be a bit overwhelming, but so neat at the same time. "Look at all the pretty dresses Mommy!" When you walk into one as a grown up girl it's still overwhelming, but for some of us it's slightly less exciting. Don't get me wrong. There was an excitement there, but at the same time I kept seeing the Stay Puff Marshmellow man with a veil on and flowers in it's fat fingers! Reality hits you and you see hundreds of dresses standing before you and you have NO idea what you are getting yourself into. I can no longer make fun of Erin and the number of dresses she made me climb under, zip, clip, or hang up when we went to find her wedding dress. I was nearly as bad. The first few were ok. I seem to be at a size that isn't around very much. They either have smaller or larger and let's not even get into my height problem! We laughed and giggled our way through the whole charade. Erin was slightly abusive, but nothing out of the ordinary. At one point she tried taking the whole underneath of my hair out with a dress. I was almost out of the damn thing when she tugged to get it over my head. My hair had somehow attached itself to the dress and I went flying backwards into her. She hit the door. I stepped on her toe. I remember laughing and saying, "ouch! my hair! Erin you have my hair!" I remember her saying, "be still. why are you wiggling? get out of the dress." I think it was about this time that my mom came to the dressing room door and told us to be quiet. When I was finally out of the dress Erin decided she was done helping me...at least until her toe felt better.

We had it narrowed down to two when my sister came to me with another dress. I'll be honest and admit that I didn't like it when I saw it on the hanger. I just knew it was going to make me look huge! It took a little help from both Erin and Raquel (cause it was slightly too small), but once it was one that was it. I over analyze everything and I started to do that with this dress. Then someone put a veil on my head and I was in tears a few minutes later. I love my dress. It's exactly what I wanted with just the right amount of "frilliness". I can't wait to share it with you guys. Next week we go for bridesmaid dresses. This will likely be a million times more interesting, but this time I get to sit in a chair and let someone else do all the work!