1 "To-Do" Down, 4,827 More to Go

This weekend was pretty darn exciting. My mom and Cupcake and I planned on meeting in Fort Worth to go look at wedding dresses. I had been chatting with a girl from L.A. about buying her wedding dress, a gorgeous Pronovias, for a very discounted rate. I wanted to go try on the dress first to make sure it would fit before making such a large purchase. (Side note for those not wedding dress savvy: the size of the wedding dress is greatly disproportionate to the size a girl wears in regular clothes. For instance, I wear a 4 in most clothes but in a wedding dress I wear anywhere from an 8 to a 10. It's ridiculous.)

Anyway, so mom and Cupcake and I head to the bridal shop and proceed to try on a billion dresses. Mom and Cupcake arrived before me. A woman greeted them and asked if they had an appointment. We didn't. Evidently, appointments are "preferred" (read: you're sure to go to hell if you don't make an appointment with a bridal shop.) Luckily, the Bridal Shop Gods were feeling benevolent that day and forgave us our sin. These people are far too serious.

Eventually, we were ushered into a dressing room/waiting area. The poor woman attending me, Vicki, was a little old lady with the patience of a saint. I was a good foot taller than her but she heaved those heavy dresses over my head like a champ. It was a little odd, however, when she came into the dressing room with me, handed me a corset bra and ordered me to "strip down and put on the bra."  Er...excuse me? Not even my mother sees "the girls" anymore. But there I was, naked as a jaybird because little old Vicki demanded it.

At first, I chose only Pronovias dresses because they're gorgeous and I was trying them on to see if the one I found online would fit me. It turns out, the online dress would have been a size too small. But when I tried them on I just didn't feel like me in them. And let's not even discuss how expensive they are. So I went back to the racks and started looking at all designers to try to get a sense of what I really wanted. I finally narrowed it down to three: one my mom loved (but I think it was because it was the first dress I put on and so it had an immediate impact), and two others that were champagne colored but very different styles. Of course, I had to try on all three at least two more times to help me decide which one I liked best. Poor Vicki.

Finally, we got it narrowed down to the two champagne dresses, one of which was a Maggie Sottero. I felt like a million bucks in both of them. But I kept looking at the Maggie thinking, "This might be the one." But I couldn't really say it out loud because I wanted to know my mom and Cupcake's true feelings. I put on the Maggie one more time and went out to stand in front of the mirror. All three of us just stood there looking at my reflection. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I said, "I think this is the one."

Suddenly, my mom starts clapping and saying, "Me too!" and Cupcake bursts into tears. Then I start crying. Then Vicki starts crying. And my mom's snapping pictures of all of us crying (you wonder where I get my obsessive need to take pictures of everything?).

Then I turned to Vicki and asked her if I could buy the dress of the rack at a discount. One of the best things about the Maggie was that it was already a very good price. Far less than the one I was thinking of buying online at a discount. But I knew that if I bought off the rack I could possibly get an even better price. And, lucky for me, the dress that I tried on fit perfectly. So Vicki went to ask the store owner and came back and offered the dress for $100 cheaper. I looked to mom who nodded her head vigorously and said, "Let's do it!"

So I bought my wedding dress. At the first shop I went to. During the first day of looking. Holy cow!

But the fun didn't stop there. We then headed to a vineyard just outside of Fort Worth to consider for a venue. It was beautiful and quite reasonably priced compared to all other locations I've looked into so far. I want to take Lobster to see it (he's been out of town since last Tuesday) but I think it will be a top contender!

So that was my weekend. It was so much fun and it will be an amazing memory for me, my mom and Cupcake.