picture this.

   Say Yes to the Dress has ruined society.

   

   Picture this: It’s the day you have set an appointment (or had your mom do it) to try on wedding dresses for the first time in your life, excluding that one time you awkwardly modeled wedding gowns in 8^th grade for a bridal fair because you live in a small town and happened to be the height of the average woman of marrying age.

   Now picture this: You walk into said bridal shop and the first thing you see is a girl/woman paying for her wedding dress with a too-small tank top on that provides a lovely view of her dual tramp stamps reading “Brian” on the right and “Damien” on the left.  My sister’s an optimist and said “well maybe they’re her kid’s names…?”

   Moving on to this: You gleefully make your way into the gown section and begin perusing the lacey and shimmery numbers only to discover they all cost about 30x what you set your internal price limit at and the more “perfect” they are, the more they cost and the more they cost, the more you consider going to JoAnn’s Fabric in the mall and buying a few yards of off-white synthetic cotton and a Do It Yourself bridal pattern.

   So now: Here I am in the back dressing room facing twelve of the most beautiful wedding gowns I’ve ever seen, dressed for the first time in a corset and nude-colored slip, while being questioned about my wedding colors and what style of shoe I’m wearing.

HALT!

   All I can think of is Is this really happening? Am I really about to try on wedding gowns that cost more than what my car Blue Books at? Why didn’t I wear seamless underwear? Am I seriously trying on wedding dresses?!

   Tried on wedding dresses I did. All twelve of those puppies were at one point slipped over my head, laced/buttoned/zipped up, twirled in, and admired. I loved all of them.

   Wait a second. Aren’t I supposed to be tearing up at The Perfect Dress? Shouldn’t I get butterflies and feel like everything that could possibly go right in the world has just occurred and life is grand? That’s what Randy on Say Yes to the Dress said! WHY ISN’T THIS HAPPENING TO ME?

   Could it be because little-old-naïve-me thought I could find my Dream Dress with a $300 price tag from a bridal boutique? Could it be that I’ve ruined myself and all my reaction expectations due to excessive TLC watching? Could Kleinfeld be lying?

   These thoughts running and running through my head during the 42 minute drive back to our small town after Wedding Dress Shopping Day. No butterflies, no fireworks, no tears. A little bit of nervousness and a smidgen of self-pity for not being born into money but that was about it for emotion.

   Until we got home and my dad asked to see my memory card from my camera I remembered to bring along today. As we started clicking through the pictures my sister snapped of me, I noticed something.

   I was only smiling in one dress.

   Not the “hey look at me! I’m taking a picture of you!” smile. Not even the I’m relatively conscious of the fact that a camera is pointed in my direction so I am going to smile-smile. It was the I feel extremely beautiful and confident in this wedding gown and I never want to take it off smile.

   No, I didn’t buy it. It was out of my price range for one and not 100% what I picture for myself, but the process helped more than I could have hoped.

   Next time someone asks me what I imagine for my special day, I’m going to remember that look of thrill and glee on my face in that badly lit, slightly out-of-focus picture taken today and say “I’m not sure yet, but I’ll find it”.