The Bride Stripped Bare Pt. II
I was so proud of myself. I was going to be a reasonable bride. I was going to be that down-to-earth creature that smiled patiently while other people described their out-of-the-way locations, or the cost of booking a church, or complained about their fiancee's numerous relatives. J and I sensibly divided the event into three parts:
Part the first: civil ceremony at City Hall.
Part the second: honeymoon in Spain as a reward for putting up with our parents during the civil ceremony.
Part the third: wedding reception extravaganza in November, with a fancy dress and a farcical ceremony and a cake from beyond space and time. Trapeze artist! Industrial band! The set from Faust! A palanquin on an elephant! And other bizarre exclamations!
Stop me if you already know where this is going. Stop me if you don't want to hear about the things that have already gone horribly awry. I kept my cool when J could only take a week off of work for the honeymoon. I did not explode when my parents bought our airline tickets for the wrong dates and the honeymoon wound up being somewhat shorter than expected - these are free airline tickets that I am not paying for, I am not in a position to complain about them. I got a bit testy when J's parents travel plans forced us to change the date and nearly all of the plans for the civil ceremony. But I did not truly know what it is to be blinded by wedding-induced madness until Betsey Johnson sold out of my dress.
It was love at first sight. It is a terrible thing to fall in love with a dress. It will never love you back, not even if you drop everything and immediately spend $350 on it, which I did not. I walked away from the perfect dress, with its clean 1950's lines and embroidered birds and pockets because surely it would still be available in July, and perhaps it might even go on sale. By the time I had screwed my courage (and checkbook) to the sticking place and walked into the Betsey Johnson store to purchase the embroidered bird dress I so richly deserved, it was gone.
It was gone in my size. It was gone in every size. It was gone at the online store. There were rumors that the dress might still exist at the LA, or New York, or Boston stores, but those rumors turned out to be ephemeral. There were rumors that it was available under a different name on at online retailer, but by the time I found it, the dress had sold out. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything even reasonably similar to it. And now I am getting married in less than two weeks and I have nothing to wear.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to stand in a corner and rock back and forth while hugging myself.
Part the first: civil ceremony at City Hall.
Part the second: honeymoon in Spain as a reward for putting up with our parents during the civil ceremony.
Part the third: wedding reception extravaganza in November, with a fancy dress and a farcical ceremony and a cake from beyond space and time. Trapeze artist! Industrial band! The set from Faust! A palanquin on an elephant! And other bizarre exclamations!
Stop me if you already know where this is going. Stop me if you don't want to hear about the things that have already gone horribly awry. I kept my cool when J could only take a week off of work for the honeymoon. I did not explode when my parents bought our airline tickets for the wrong dates and the honeymoon wound up being somewhat shorter than expected - these are free airline tickets that I am not paying for, I am not in a position to complain about them. I got a bit testy when J's parents travel plans forced us to change the date and nearly all of the plans for the civil ceremony. But I did not truly know what it is to be blinded by wedding-induced madness until Betsey Johnson sold out of my dress.
It was love at first sight. It is a terrible thing to fall in love with a dress. It will never love you back, not even if you drop everything and immediately spend $350 on it, which I did not. I walked away from the perfect dress, with its clean 1950's lines and embroidered birds and pockets because surely it would still be available in July, and perhaps it might even go on sale. By the time I had screwed my courage (and checkbook) to the sticking place and walked into the Betsey Johnson store to purchase the embroidered bird dress I so richly deserved, it was gone.
It was gone in my size. It was gone in every size. It was gone at the online store. There were rumors that the dress might still exist at the LA, or New York, or Boston stores, but those rumors turned out to be ephemeral. There were rumors that it was available under a different name on at online retailer, but by the time I found it, the dress had sold out. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything even reasonably similar to it. And now I am getting married in less than two weeks and I have nothing to wear.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to stand in a corner and rock back and forth while hugging myself.