Wedding of the Century Part Deux: That Dress

The dress, with bonus look at fancy hotel room

I've remarked before that the Mother of the Groom has a wonderfully easy ride when it comes to wedding planning. With the heavy lifting of wedding planning done by the bride and her family, the MoG's most important work was done 30 years ago (see also: big-headed babies) so it frees up brain space for obsessing on the one thing friends ask about, over and over:

What was I going to wear?

Oh, dear reader(s). If only you know how much mental energy I spent on this issue. On the one hand, it was much fun to have a good excuse to surf the 'net looking at beautiful dresses. On the other hand, wedding pictures are forever. Those "for better or worse" judgments also include the style choices of the wedding party as seen by future generations, and those choices can be either timeless or ridiculous.

As soon as Boy#2 and his Lovely Girl announced their intentions (or, ahem, perhaps before the announcement) I was scouring the interwebs for what I would wear to the WotCII. The Mother of the Bride and I commiserated during the search--she called it one of Dante's circles of hell, and I could not dispute the description. If you are in a similar search, I'm holding up a fist in solidarity because this path is fraught with brambles, and those brambles are sequined, chiffon-ed, and cellulite-revealing.

 In my case the search was even more difficult because I loved my first MoG dress. I can recall feeling absolutely beautiful only two times in my life--the day I got married, and the day our oldest Boy was married--and in both cases this was partly because I loved my dress.

With six months to go until the wedding I already had five different outfits hanging on the guest room closet door. Each of them was...okay. One was a muted version of the first Wedding of the Century's choice. Another was lavender and sequined, so...not so much me, but time was ticking toward October with no dress love in sight.

Finally my barber suggested I try one of the fanciest stores in nearby Big City. I had assumed it would be out of my price range but she'd found her own MoG dress there, so I took a deep breath and braved the upscale environment. I walked through racks of clothes normally chosen by women way above my social status and was already planning which department store I'd visit next when I saw it:

That dress.

Hanging near the back of the store was a floor-length ball gown with a form-fitting black bodice and absurdly huge roses on its full skirt. And it was in my budget range.

I carried it into the rose-carpeted dressing room and Dianne the saleslady slipped it over my head. I gasped. It felt exactly right--heavy-skirted, posture-enhancing, no sequins in sight. 

Except that it wasn't exactly right. It was sleeveless, and I am not in the minuscule percentage of women who can wear sleeveless dresses at mmmmphty years old. Every look in the mirror reminds of Garrison Keillor's names for his third-grade teacher's upper arms--Hoppy and Bob.

"Oh, I love it, but I can't do sleeveless," I told Dianne sadly.

Never have I seen a sales person move more quickly. She zipped back onto the sales floor and within 10 seconds was back with a filmy chiffon jacket. It was perfect.

I walked out to where Husband was waiting in the show room, and I'm pretty sure he was only looking at my face when he said "Is this the one? Yes? Then I can tell you that lavender and sequins are not you."

I don't have a good way to wrap up this post that doesn't sound like I'm asking you to tell me whether you do or do not like this dress. (Black for a wedding can be a controversial choice.) I can only say that I now have three times in my life that I have felt absolutely beautiful. Happiness can do that for you, but it doesn't hurt to have a dress you really love.

This was that dress.


Next up on the WotCII chronicles: MAKE-UP! HAIR!