Truths: Step one – get it over your head

Aaah – so I began my journey yesterday looking for dresses. Sigh. It started at 11:30 and the first stint ended at 2…which really could have ended at 3 but I had a hair appointment (which I was late to) so we had to rush through the last 10 dresses. I don’t know if I was just worn out by then – but the last 10 (actually 9) just didn’t do it for me or Nancy.

I say 9 because right after I got dressed and the 30 plus dresses were put away – Nancy found just one more I should try on… Her opinions had been pretty much right on the whole morning so I begrudgingly agreed to take off my clothes one more time and give it a chance..

Turns out it is one of contenders – go figure.

I ended up with two possibilities after nearly 2 hours of getting naked and re-dressed. I think most women can understand the sheer exhaustion of trying on any clothes – but trying on “wedding” dresses takes things to marathon level.

Some go over your head – as you dive in and hope that you come out near the top with the straps on your arms and not stuck around your neck.

Some you take from the bottom up and hope that the dress doesn’t get stuck on your hips or your ass forcing you to topple over onto the ground – laughing at yourself and silently crying because obviously your ass is too big.

Then comes the zipper. My method is to arch my back and wrap my arms around myself in a near contortion and yank on the zipper… when all else fails – you walk out into the open – half naked - and ask your friend to help you out.

Luckily, for me, most of the dresses were sizes that were too big on me. Big smile. Which meant that Nancy had to take the giant clip and snug me up. (I have to say the giant clip is certainly modern technology in terms of dress fitting… used to be that someone had to take a thousand straight pins to get the same effect).

Some of the dresses I could eliminate in about 10 seconds… though I would give Nancy a chance to weigh in… 99.9% of the time she instantly agreed.

And then there were the others… I would walk out – we would sigh…I would go to the pretty 3 way mirror – stand on the stool to make myself look longer and see how the dress would ultimately look hemmed and we would sigh again…sometimes saying, “I think I like it.”

At which point we would start to create ways to alter it so we would like it better.

Sigh again.

Its just some did make my ass look big, some made it look small, some just seemed to make me look old and some just weren’t me, some I wanted to like but just couldn’t and well, most just didn’t do anything at all.

So, it came down to two…

Then last night I ended up going to another place with my friend Ellen. This was more or less a disaster.

The place was busy and apparently, since I wasn’t going to buy anything white – I really didn’t matter. On one hand it was nice because it was just Ellen and I whipping through dresses – with no one else to interfere – but there were definitely times when a “professional's” opinion would have helped.

I believe we went through about 15-20 dresses in about an hour. I am getting this sport down. After a lot of contemplation about a few – it came down to one – which in the end – only came in blue and that wasn’t going to work.

We left, empty handed and exhausted… and it was 7:30 and I had not eaten all day. We finally went to dinner.

I tossed and turned all night – envisioning the two dresses – the pros and the cons… and have my reservations about both.

Is this the kind of dress that is supposed to bring tears to my eyes when it is the right one?

Well, tomorrow is round two… with my friend Monica. The one thing I did learn (that I should have known already) is I am bringing a better bra.