SAGA: The Wedding Dress

I love events. I love getting dressed up. My two modes are gross leggings and subtle drag queen. So when it came time to plan a wedding, I knew I would love the part where you get to buy a dress. Then I attended my very first wedding dress appointment where that optimism shattered into a thousand tiny white lace appliques. 

Despite loving weddings, I never studied them and I didn’t know anything about the bridal world. I booked the first appointment by googling “most expensive wedding dress store.” I thought it would be fun to go all out for the first appointment and try on the fancy shit with my friends. So I reached for the stars and told the website-appointment-form that money is no object for the right dress and that you can’t put a number on happiness. Even though you absolutely can and my number is $10. 

I walked in the store with four excited friends in tow and gleefully stated, “I want to try on your biggest dress!” The woman gave me a strange smile so I continued: “Like, whatever dress is closest to a parade float.”  I began to look around and assumed all the good dresses must be in the back. 

I had just assumed all wedding dress stores had…wedding dresses; the tulle-organza-nightmares that makes you look like a cake topper! I had instead brought myself to hell: a fancy upscale dainty lady fairy bish store where the sample sizes were made for 15-year-old me, after I lost 10 pounds. I didn’t want to look like a fairy on my wedding day, I want to look like the sea beast that stole her vocal chords. The sample sizes barely fit, or didn’t fit at all.  I didn’t realize that bridal sales people often wrestle a dress on your naked body. I wasn’t ready! I wish I could have gone in there wearing a bag on my head or an Eyes Wide Shut mask so they never knew my identity. 

The next store I went to had your more typical wedding fair. I began pointing randomly at dresses and the saleswoman brought a selection in the dressing room. She said “it's very important which dress you try on first, so choose wisely.” I took a deep breath, and pointed to the dress I loved the most. She said “no, not that one.” 

Why. Why would she do this to me!?!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

After my friends took over, the dresses got better, and finally I found one that I liked. Though in retrospect it was more like eating a bunch of brown lettuce and then someone hands you a cold fry. But I was feeling it so I asked for a veil. 

The saleswoman gasped! She said oh my god, is this the one? 

I said, I have no idea!?  She said, well I can’t bring you a veil unless it’s the one. Then we stared at each other for a while until she asked, does this dress make you feel like crying? 

I think it's very cool that people can be moved to tears by a wedding dress and I know it can be a very special moment for many people. It’s just never going to happen for me, and if it did, I would have to call the wedding off because I’m having a mental breakdown and it’s time to move to the woods and talk to birds. 

I realized I needed to do some recon if I was going to find a wedding dress. I homeschooled myself with every single episode of Say Yes to The Dress and I also found my new favorite show in the world: Four Weddings on TLC which stopped airing years ago and had a show budget of $3. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to send four strangers to each other’s weddings and judge them, while also trying to win the ‘best wedding’ themselves, was a genius. 

Since those two appointments, I have been to fourteen dress stores and tried on 70 or 80 dresses.  See? I’m crazy enough, if I also start crying at the sight of myself, we have a major problem. 

I’ve been posting the whole dress saga on my Instagram, and maybe I’ll post an update on the dress that gets chosen, but until then here are some things I’ve learned. And keep in mind, I’m the person who had never seen a wedding TV show and recently contemplated buying a dress from a website where the brides were all barefoot but were also posing on a red carpet?? Don’t listen to me. 

TIPZ:

#1: If you’re curvy, don’t wear a Spanx thong. The dress is going to get caught on your raw butt meat. 

#2. Don’t wear full Spanx, it’s going to show when they put on some low back or see-through dress panel. 

#3. Don’t go commando. Not a tip. Just a thing I’ve seen on a lot of wedding dress websites and it’s worrisome that they have to write it at all. 

#4. This is my only real tip: If you’re a people pleaser, always remember to say “Let me think about it.” Don’t feel pressured to say yes to the dress ™ because those bridal contracts will fuck your shit up. I’m speaking as someone who bought a dress, then panicked all night, then called at 6am to cancel it, while professing my mistake to a voice mailbox.  But hey, I finally had my cry at the dress moment! Yay me! We all have our special bridal moments, don’t we!!