I got the call that my wedding dress is ready for me to pick up! As with all things wedding, you can' t just drop by after work and pick it up. That's too easy. You have to make an appointment and then go into the store, try it on, ooooh and aaaaahh and then take it home and start the project of finding a seamstress to do alterations for less than $1,000.
This dress, a lovely strapless La Sposa "gown," has been the bustled locus of all my deepest anxiety and fear about the whole process. And I am not sure if "the process" is about getting married or having a wedding or both. To tell you the truth, I can't tell the difference right now. There is a part of me that is ashamed to admit that I like this dress. That I love it, even. There is something so iconic about a wedding dress. People refer to it as "THE" dress. I looked at dozens of bridal magazines before I ever stepped so much as a toe into any dresses. I will be more visible in this dress than in any other garment I have ever worn. I will be the only person wearing white (it's November north of Mason Dixon line so that makes sense on a variety of levels), celebrating an important event in my life, with a man that I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with and have a family with, and all of these people have flown in or driven during a holiday weekend to support us... that's a lot of pressure for one dress. And I have trouble deciding what to wear on Monday mornings.
There is a little sadness for me around making certain decisions around the wedding. For everything I do choose, there are hundreds of things I will never have-- because I plan to get married only once. I think about all the dresses and the styles and the ensembles that will never be my wedding dress and I feel some sadness about it. I will never wear a silky, slinky, low cut dress. I will never wear a wedding dress with a sash or a mermaid dress. These musings scare me a little bit and make me wonder if I got the right dress. Then I feel shame because, for the love of Christmas, it's just a dress and it's pretty self-indulgent to sit around thinking about whether, of the billions of dresses out there, I got the best one.
It's really all about what fits for me. Just writing that sentence makes me cry. I have tried in so many ways to fit into jobs, or relationships, or dresses, or molds that just weren't for me. As I do settle down and become willing to accept what fits me, it turns out that it's a fairly ornate, princessy, strapless wedding gown. I tried to reject this dress. I told myself it was ugly and cheap and looked like a young girl's Quincenera dress. Too frilly. Too gaudy. Too wrong. I was scared to just settle down and love it. People told me to go back to the store and visit the dress, so I brought 4 bridesmaids and a god daughter back out to the suburbs to help me see through loving eyes who I really am. We were almost sold on a few of the others, but when I finally tried on the one I had bought (that was also nonrefundable), everyone agreed: The dress was me and it was the best of the bunch by far.
Yesterday, I was early to a therapy appointment so I ducked into WalGreen's and wandered around until I found the magazine section. The Knot put out a big bridal issue for August and it has over 200 gowns in it. I found mine in the magazine and what I realized is that it's hard to own myself. In some ways I have resisted coming to know and accept who I am-- all of me, including my body, my taste, my style, my desire-- because I don't want to be put into a box, or nailed down, or stuck. I had no idea there was so much freedom in just settling down into who I really am, which is best expressed by making a decision. "This one is for me." "I want this one." From that position, I am free to have my feet on the ground and make choices about who to love, how to spend time, and how to make decisions that match me just like the La Sposa gown.
This dress, a lovely strapless La Sposa "gown," has been the bustled locus of all my deepest anxiety and fear about the whole process. And I am not sure if "the process" is about getting married or having a wedding or both. To tell you the truth, I can't tell the difference right now. There is a part of me that is ashamed to admit that I like this dress. That I love it, even. There is something so iconic about a wedding dress. People refer to it as "THE" dress. I looked at dozens of bridal magazines before I ever stepped so much as a toe into any dresses. I will be more visible in this dress than in any other garment I have ever worn. I will be the only person wearing white (it's November north of Mason Dixon line so that makes sense on a variety of levels), celebrating an important event in my life, with a man that I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with and have a family with, and all of these people have flown in or driven during a holiday weekend to support us... that's a lot of pressure for one dress. And I have trouble deciding what to wear on Monday mornings.
There is a little sadness for me around making certain decisions around the wedding. For everything I do choose, there are hundreds of things I will never have-- because I plan to get married only once. I think about all the dresses and the styles and the ensembles that will never be my wedding dress and I feel some sadness about it. I will never wear a silky, slinky, low cut dress. I will never wear a wedding dress with a sash or a mermaid dress. These musings scare me a little bit and make me wonder if I got the right dress. Then I feel shame because, for the love of Christmas, it's just a dress and it's pretty self-indulgent to sit around thinking about whether, of the billions of dresses out there, I got the best one.
It's really all about what fits for me. Just writing that sentence makes me cry. I have tried in so many ways to fit into jobs, or relationships, or dresses, or molds that just weren't for me. As I do settle down and become willing to accept what fits me, it turns out that it's a fairly ornate, princessy, strapless wedding gown. I tried to reject this dress. I told myself it was ugly and cheap and looked like a young girl's Quincenera dress. Too frilly. Too gaudy. Too wrong. I was scared to just settle down and love it. People told me to go back to the store and visit the dress, so I brought 4 bridesmaids and a god daughter back out to the suburbs to help me see through loving eyes who I really am. We were almost sold on a few of the others, but when I finally tried on the one I had bought (that was also nonrefundable), everyone agreed: The dress was me and it was the best of the bunch by far.
Yesterday, I was early to a therapy appointment so I ducked into WalGreen's and wandered around until I found the magazine section. The Knot put out a big bridal issue for August and it has over 200 gowns in it. I found mine in the magazine and what I realized is that it's hard to own myself. In some ways I have resisted coming to know and accept who I am-- all of me, including my body, my taste, my style, my desire-- because I don't want to be put into a box, or nailed down, or stuck. I had no idea there was so much freedom in just settling down into who I really am, which is best expressed by making a decision. "This one is for me." "I want this one." From that position, I am free to have my feet on the ground and make choices about who to love, how to spend time, and how to make decisions that match me just like the La Sposa gown.
No comments:
Post a Comment