by Susan Wiggs
I knew it. I knew it! Brigitte’s hard stares at my winter-soft physique hadn’t simply been the result of her lifelong goal to be able to hide behind a toothpick. Sure, she hadn’t actually said anything about my body, but I knew what she was thinking, and she was right. Now Molly thought so, too.
I should just get married in a bathrobe. I could never pull off the ball gown I’d been dreaming of since I could say “printheth” in my toddler’s lisp.
I glanced at my mom and saw her clutching her heart.
Okay, it wasn’t that bad, was it?
Was I really giving my mom heartburn with my over-the-top wedding dress preferences?
I turned slowly to look in the mirror and survey the damage. There, standing before me, was exactly what I’d been fantasizing since I was a little girl.
The dress was…perfect. The skirt drifted to the floor, forming a large bell with a four-foot train that would have made Disney animators jealous. The bodice nipped in at the narrowest part of my waist and suddenly I found myself glad for my curvy hips. The warm ivory color of the delicate tulle set off creamy peach tones in my skin, causing my blue eyes to take on a cerulean hue. My hair, pulled carelessly back and slightly frizzy from the frenzy of dress changes suddenly seemed carefree and romantic. A soft sweetheart neckline, bordered by glinting crystals, gave me nontrashy cleavage (how’s that for a miracle?), and huzzah! My arms looked slender.
The skinny bitch got it right. This dress was The One.
I happily skipped about the entire store, jumping up on the runway and flouncing to and fro, checking myself out in the mirrored walls and squealing like a contestant on The Bachelor.
I looked Brigitte in her flat eyes and said, “This is it. I’ll take it.”
In a flash, her face came to life and her expression changed to what can only be described as a barracuda with a plump, juicy gold-fish in its sights. “Great,” she cackled, steepling her fingers (seriously, she really did steeple her fingers). “This one is $12,000. Plus tailoring, fitting, prewedding storage, dewrinkling, steaming, refitting, day-of fitting, postwedding storage.” She might as well have added post-divorce repurposing for good measure.
I’d been waiting for my mom to burst into tears when I found the dress of my dreams. And she did, but I’ll never know if it was the sight of her little girl in the bridal gown, or the price tag that broke her down.
My lower lip began to tremble. Twelve thousand dollars? But that was almost my entire wedding budget! Wildly, my mind began to race, trying to divine a way for me to afford the gown. You could have this dress if you fed your guests squirt cheese on Rye Crisps and downgraded the music to a kazoo quartet, I told myself.
You could offer to moonlight here as a salesgirl and work off some of the cost, I thought. I looked at Brigitte and realized I’d never make it in the underworld.
Then I was hit by a lightning bolt of genius. Run! I heard the voice in my head screaming. Run now! While she’s not expecting it! As my leg muscles tensed, I was already calculating how much jail time I could get for stealing a $12,000 dress. I edged toward the door, trying to recall exactly where I’d parked the getaway car. And then I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror—this time from across the room, where the fine details on the dress (including the designer’s name embroidered into the tag) weren’t as apparent.
You know what I looked like?
A bride. A bride in a big, white dress. A young, excited bride who was glowing with happiness over the prospect of decades spent with her soul mate.
The expression on my face—the one I’d been wearing since I met Dave, actually—was the most stunning part of my ensemble, and I knew then that any gown I chose for my wedding day would simply be icing on the cake. But it wasn’t the cake. I was.
Because, folks, here’s the reality: a big white dress is a big white dress. It doesn’t matter if it was designed by Coco Chanel or Koko the Ape. Other than the occasional Rachel Zoe addict, no one is going to be able to tell the difference. Cheesy as it sounds, a happy bride’s smile will shine more brightly than any Swarovski crystal ever could.
So go ahead and wear your dress (or skirt, or pantsuit, or bikini, or skort or whatever bridal outfit you choose) like it came right off a Parisian runway. The only thing people will remember (if they remember anything besides the color) is how you glowed with joy. And maybe some will remember the cut (including you), so if you want a ball gown, get a blasted ball gown because it’s the only chance you’ll have to wear one without looking like you’re in a costume.
If you find your dream gown and it’s in your price range, more power to you. I wasn’t so lucky. But that dress set the bar. As I happily flounced out of the snobby store, taking with me any commission Brigitte could have hoped to earn, I had to thank her for one thing: she gave me exactly what I was looking for—a vision quest. I had been within reach of The Dress, and all that remained was for me to find something equally gorgeous with a price tag that wouldn’t require me to sell a kidney. From then on, my dress shopping would be efficient and focused. I would only consider ball gowns, and only those under a thousand bucks.
Everything happens for a reason, my mom says. Looking back, I can see now that without the encounter with Brigitte, I never would have ended up at the next shop.
Later that afternoon, my mom, Molly and I went to lunch in the quaint neighborhood of Wallingford in Seattle. Molly spent a good part of the lunch convincing me to eat more than a piece of lettuce, reminding me that I was not actually a candidate for world’s largest woman and that I was definitely not allowed to let Brigitte and her skeletal aesthetic make me feel bad about myself. My mom simply said in her most matter-of-fact voice, “You can’t trust a girl who weighs less than the purse she carries.”
As we walked out of the café, I glanced across the street. Nestled along a rosy pink wall, four shop windows displayed mannequins in long, white gowns. Above the door to the small shop, a humble black awning read, I Do Bridal.
I’ll be honest with you. I always pictured finding my gown in a place that oozed upscale elegance. My dressing room attendant would serve my mom and bridesmaids teacakes and champagne as I tried on dress after beautiful dress, emerging from behind a billowy silk curtain to stand on a dais in front of the women in my life as they lounged on a pillow-soft couch. Even after my experience with The Harpy Formerly Known as Brigitte, I figured I’d find another store with a similar atmosphere—and more reasonable prices.
I Do Bridal looked a little…homemade, compared to my fantasy.
This is where it came in handy to have an insanely practical mother and a down-to-earth bridesmaid with me.
“Wiggs, why don’t we try that shop?” Molly asked. She knew a thing or two about finding wedding dresses in unlikely places. Her own wedding was a mere two months away, and she would be wearing an incredible raw silk A-line gown she’d found in an eastern Washington quinceañera shop that sported a window display of neon-green prom dresses.
My mom piggybacked onto this: “Yeah, it looks like the exact opposite of the last place. It will be a breath of fresh air.”
Feeling grumpy and tired, I turned up my nose. “I’m not going to find what I’m looking for in that place,” I sneered. “‘I Do Bridal?’ How about ‘I Do Saks Fifth Avenue?’” I huffed, thinking myself clever.
But Molly and my mom already had me by the wrists.
They bodily threw me through the door. The first thing I saw was a tattered, industrial-style carpet littered with small threads, sequins and buttons that had fallen off sample dresses. In one corner stood a fake-gilt fainting couch for the moms. The air was musty, and as I looked up, I saw why: on three racks crammed into a space roughly the size of Dave’s 1980 two-door Volvo sedan, a mountain of wedding dresses threatened to explode from their tight confines like my back fat from a size 0 bodice.
I stifled a groan and mentally vowed to appease my mother by trying on three token dresses before I made a beeline for the car.
/> “Hi!” chirped a cheerful voice. Emerging from the nest of dresses like a bridal gnome, a small woman beamed at me. She looked…well, like me, only Asian. Young, with an average build, wearing comfortable jeans and a T-shirt, her glossy black hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She wore no makeup and had a genuine smile, and as she reached out to shake my hand I noticed a small but beautiful solitaire engagement ring on her finger. “I’m Bridget,” she said.
I immediately liked her. I looked around to see if someone was playing a joke on me—she really was the non-French version of the snob from the first store. My mom and Molly smiled at each other, knowing how serendipitous this was. It seemed like a sign.
I resolved to keep an open mind—even though the entitled bride-devil on my shoulder kept whispering sweet nothings in my ear about expansive dressing rooms and Oscar de la Renta gowns. I calmed myself down by promising to make an appointment with Saks immediately if the dresses here were lame.
I told Bridget that I wanted the biggest dress she had. She congratulated me on my engagement and asked me a couple of questions about the wedding, my dress budget, my style and, most importantly—what my fiancé wanted me to wear. “Obviously, he doesn’t get the final say,” she giggled, “but you want your future husband to love the dress almost as much as you do, right?”
She had a point. On the runway earlier that day, Dave’s opinion had been the last thing on my mind as I fretted over price tags and imaginary pockets of fat on my arms.
“He always tells me I’m his very own Disney princess,” I said. (Um…and Dear Readers, if you ever meet Dave don’t mention that to him—he’ll tell you he only likes The Lion King and Tarzan, Disney’s more manly selections.)
Bridget grinned. “I have the perfect dress for you.”
She turned on the heel of her canvas sneaker and prepared to dive back into the mass of dresses crowded along the far wall of the store.
“Wait!” I said, just as she heaved a row of hangers off to the side. “Is this…this perfect dress…under a thousand bucks?”
“Of course!” she said. “Honestly, we don’t carry that many gowns over your budget.”
I heard my mom’s audible sigh of relief at this, but the greedy devil appeared again on my shoulder, hissing, “How can a cheap dress look anywhere near as good as the one you had on this morning?” I had to admit to myself that the gown this morning had set the bar pretty high—and it had also set a reference point on price. I could feel myself anchoring on $12,000 as a figure that indicated a level of beauty and quality that less expensive dresses simply lacked. Then I caught Molly’s eye as she helpfully held aside a pile of chiffon so Bridget could unearth the dress she had in mind for me.
Molly’s gorgeous wedding gown, the raw silk number that made her look like a blond Audrey Hepburn, had been inexpensive—and it had all the bridal bells and whistles, including subtle crystal detailing at the waist, intricate ruching on the bodice and beautiful tailoring that would hold up a few decades from now for her own daughter’s wedding.
I brushed aside the selfish devil on my shoulder and stepped into my teeny dressing room. Bridget appeared a moment later, arms full of glittering tulle.
“Most girls don’t even want to try on this dress because it’s such a ball gown,” she said, panting from the effort of carrying it. “But for a girl who has Prince Charming waiting for her at the altar, this is The One.”
She plopped the dress on the ground, skirt first, and it stayed standing like a mountain of bridey-ness. She unzipped the bodice (I reminded myself it was okay to have a bodice with a zipper instead of buttons or ribbons) and asked me to step in. I closed my eyes and took the plunge—literally. I misjudged how much fabric I had to step over to get into the dress and found myself clawing at the cloth walls of the dressing room, trying to keep my balance without shoving my grundies into Bridget’s face. She reached out, grabbed my hand and guided me to the patch of floor buried beneath the layers of ivory netting.
As she zipped me up, I kept my eyes on the floor. I didn’t want to see myself until I was standing with my mom and Molly.
Bridget took the back in with industrial-sized clamps. Turns out that at most bridal salons, where you’re not expected to be built like a twig, the sample dresses are typically size 10 to 14 to work for any body type. I already felt better about myself. We didn’t need any Wiggs-sized crowbars to shove me into this gown.
I stepped out of the dressing room, arms held out slightly to accommodate the wide skirt that fell from my hips, and looked at my mom and Molly.
I’m sure you’ve already guessed what happened.
This time, both of their eyes filled with tears, and I knew they were the good kind.
I stepped up to the trifold mirror and peered at myself.
Would you believe it—this dress was friggin’ better than the one I’d tried on that morning. It had a more classic line and hit my hips exactly below their natural curve, making me appear as deliciously feminine as any Disney princess. The bodice was covered with silver crystals and embroidery, which, seen from a few steps back, made me shimmer. And my boobs! They looked great! Perky, a little larger than they naturally are, but not like giant melons or anything (I’ll take whatever I can get). The skirt was made from layer upon layer of ivory tulle, forming a wide, swishy circle that swirled around my feet as I moved. A chapel-length train floated on the floor behind me, the top layer embroidered with tiny flowers.
It was the dress of my dreams. It was too good to be true.
I gulped. “Okay, how much does it cost?”
“This one is $750.”
“Seven hundred fifty…dollars?” I asked, gaping.
I looked at my mom, who was managing to keep herself together. She gave me a small, firm nod. Shazam.
On my wedding day more than a year later, people couldn’t stop complimenting me on the dress, I felt glorious about myself and Dave needed CPR the minute he saw me.
My mom, I’m forced to tell you, knew I Do Bridal was a good karma shop as soon as we went to the front of the store to purchase the dress: at the main counter, writing up orders with calm efficiency, was a woman who shared a story about her own daughter’s wedding gown. She was a mother, too. And when there’s a mom in charge, you can’t go wrong.
SUSAN
When Elizabeth found the dress I was thrilled—but not a bit surprised. The moment I saw it, I thought, “Of course.”
Why? Because I’d known what the dress would look like since she was five years old. She started drawing pictures of herself as a bride back then, and in every picture she drew, she was wearing this exact dress, practically down to the last detail. There was always a crystal-encrusted bodice surrounded by yards and yards of sparkling tulle, a veil worthy of Maria in The Sound of Music and high-heeled dancing shoes.
The most important attribute of the dress, as any little girl will tell you, is that it must bell out gracefully when she spins around. Every time Elizabeth tried on a dress or even a nightgown, she would spin like a dervish. “It swirls,” she would say. “It swirls!” If the swirl factor was not present, the garment would go straight back to the rack.
The dress she found had swirl. It had crystals. Beading, tulle, you name it. When she spun around, that sucker swirled clear to Cincinnati. It was, for sure, The One.
The only missing detail was the groom. As a tiny girl, she wasn’t picky. In fact, for the longest time, she thought the word was broom and decided it was a perfectly good dance partner. The groom might be a large plush toy with button eyes, or our aging Golden Retriever. Sometimes she’d rope in an actual kid. I remember a boy she called Stinkypants in preschool who was willing to stand there like Bambi in the headlights while she twirled around him.
The one thing that never changed was that dress. Twenty years later, the vision came to life in a tiny bridal shop in Seattle, and it was well worth the wait.
It passed the spin test. It swirled.
So that’s the good news.
The bad news is, the mom has to wear something. And okay, I’ll just say it. Reality bites. You know which reality I mean—the one that glares at you with the unblinking clarity of a three-way mirror in the dressing room.
Most of us don’t spend our time in the limelight on a day-to-day basis. So when it smacks you upside the head that you’re going to have to look fabulous on your daughter’s Big Day, you start to fret. You look in that mirror, illuminated by the least-flattering light ever to beam down on a bulge of cellulite, and fretfulness sets in.
While your size-2 daughter is being outfitted as the Princess Bride, you’re feeling like Jabba the Hutt. You start thinking about the thousands of pictures that will be taken, and all of a sudden liposuction doesn’t seem like such an unreasonable proposition.
Time for another little consultation with your Common Sense Fairy. Remember that although you’re an important part of this day, you’re not the most important part. And here’s another little tidbit. Do yourself a favor and go look at some photos of people’s weddings. The bride is always beautiful, isn’t she? And the bride’s mother looks just magnificent, doesn’t she? Even if she’s, um, gravitationally challenged and wearing a chiffon monstrosity of a dress, she looks great in the pictures. Here’s the key—a photo of someone who is happy and having a great time is always going to look good. Genuine emotion trumps cosmetic surgery every time.
However, you do need a dress. But I’ll tell you what you do not need. You do not need a chiffon monstrosity. You don’t need a drapey muumuu or a bell-sleeved tunic covering up your arms. You don’t need something edgy and loud and fashion-forward that calls attention to itself. And you don’t—God forbid—want to clash or compete with the groom’s mother.
Here’s what you do want—you want to look age-appropriate but stylish enough. You want to feel comfortable even six hours into the festivities. You want to dance.
I’m a little out of my depth, offering style tips. As a writer, I tend to spend long hours alone in a room, wearing a sweatsuit, fuzzy slippers and headphones. (Sorry about that visual.) I pretty much have the fashion sense of a gas station attendant. And I’d rather watch moss grow on a barn roof than spend a day shopping.