Dress stress

Hiya! I know there is at least one person who will read this on their RSS feed. Hi, Clare!

So even though we don't have a date, venue, firm guest list, photographer, caterer, or even know what state we want to get married in, I am already having a really specific terror. If you know me at all, you can probably guess what it is...

Yup, the DRESS! DUM DUM DUM! In case M ever reads this, I don't want to talk about it in detail. But I am not even really thinking about specifics here. Mostly, I am talking about my fear of the whole process.

I am not the kind of person that enjoys shopping. I am very frugal and hate spending so much money on badly constructed clothes. Recently, my work pants were literally falling apart before I finally motivated myself to go shopping. I also just do not like trying on clothes in general. I have about 20 minutes before I get so mentally and physically exhausted that I want to lay down on the floor of the dressing room and take a nap.

There is also the matter of the traumatic experience I had while buying a bridesmaid's dress for my friend B's wedding. We were at a small bridal boutique - I had come all the way from Minnesota to NJ specifically to be fitted for it. Our attendant pulled the sample (which was several sizes too small, of course) and clipped it to kinda fit on me. Then she proceeded to make a few comments about how difficult it was to fit me in the thing and 'irregular' sizes. Then she took my measurements and wrote them down. Once I was in my clothes again, we sat down to put in the order. It was a separate top and skirt, but you had to order all the same size (kind of defeats the purpose of separates, right?). The way my measurements were, she suggested that I order a size several sizes larger than what my other measurements would suggest, and about 5  or more sizes bigger than my street size. Of course, they charged me an extra 40$ for that on top of an already pricey dress.

Fast forward to when the dress came in and I got it, the same weekend as B's shower. I 'tried' it on. And by that I mean that I threw it up in the air and let it billow over me like a parachute. It was TERRIBLE. It was so huge that it literally didn't look like clothes, it looked like a tent. It was so bad. I took it back to Minnesota and found a great seamstress. She literally had to take apart every seam in the entire dress and also to add a center seam in the middle of the bodice to make it look right at all. I had two fittings for it. When she was done, it looked much better, and she handed me a grocery bag stuffed with all the extra fabric (I still have it somewhere, I should find it and do something with it! like, you know, make a year's worth of clothing).  When we got to the wedding day, one of the other bridesmaids had gotten a bad size as well, but this time too small. She had it altered as much as possible, but even then, the zipper pulled apart and wouldn't stay shut, and I had to sew her in the bloody thing.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I struggle with my body image every day as it is, and there are so many expectations and fears that I have with the dress that it already feels overwhelming and scary. I have several options, like a 'plus-size' bridal boutique, DB, and what I will probably end up doing, having a dress made.  In a dream world, I would love to go with my mom and have it be an awesome mother-daughter bonding time, but in reality, I know that will not happen and I am grieving about that. I am very blessed that several people have eagerly volunteered to go shopping with me. I know that they would be supportive and helpful.

OK, now that that is out, I have a million things to do today! We are having a craft exchange party, I am SO excited, but I haven't made my gift yet - yikes! Luckily, I have the materials, I just need to go ahead and get it going! Hope you all have a glorious weekend!

(By the way, the dress in question was worn once more in my life... and there is even a picture on this here blog! Can you find it?)

Is this thing on?

Tap! Tap! Tap! Anybody out there?

Greetings! It has been a REALLY long time since I have made a post. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I have been thinking about reviving this thing for a while. The main reason? I want to blog about... wedding planning! I read this site called Weddingbee, and while I don't think I have the consistency or courage to be so public about our plans, I do like the idea of writing about the process to refer to later, and possibly for a few friends, etc. But first, I want to just start out and see if I can keep up with it a bit! I will try to start out with the back story of how I got to be engaged in the first place. Next up!