The Dress

Right after Kent and I started talking about marriage, I had, in a moment of weakness, perused wedding dresses one day at work. I came across one I adored. It struck me at once as both classic and unique, definitely a wedding dress but far from over-the-top. I printed it out for future reference and did no further dress-gazing pre-engagement.

It was the first dress I tried to find online after Kent popped the question; it had been discontinued.

I’d always had a fairly good idea of what I wanted in a wedding dress. The problem, of course, is that my ideas didn’t exactly coexist in reality. I also faced a challenge in that my new, highly-skilled fashion consultant – my husband-to-be – was not going shopping with me. Terrified as I was about picking out a dress without him, I was far more adamant about him not seeing the dress until I was coming down the aisle.

My solution was to scroll through the entire David’s Bridal collection and note his reaction to each dress. He shared my aversion to the more modern, making-a-statement dresses – which was good. I waited with baited breath when he’d come across the ones I’d identified as my early favorites. The simple, lace-all-over number was received with little fanfare (“I’m actually not a big fan of lace,” he commented on a later dress). Other dresses I marked as possibilities did not merit much comment – which made me nervous.

Mostly we laughed at the crazy dresses and he lauded simplicity. So I made a mental note to try on a few of the simplest dresses – just to see.
Kent was very patient through the online fashion show, but equally relieved when I announced that I had collected all the feedback I needed for this undertaking. The rest was up to me.

When the day of my initial wedding dress shopping excursion came, my longtime dear friend, former roommate, and matron of honor, Sarah, picked me up at the Metro and surprised me with a bag of goodies – bridal magazines, a journal/organizer, candy, nail polish – a general sampling of just what a girl want and needs at that juncture of her life. I apologized as we drove to David’s Bridal. My hope was to never make anyone go to that madhouse on my account, but the fact is, they have the broadest range of options, so it was a fairly commonsense place to start, try on a ton of options, and narrow it down before going to other bridal shops.

Partially on account of it being a Tuesday in January, the store was fairly empty, which meant Sarah and I got to have a fair bit of fun. We picked things off the racks as the consultant pulled out dresses I’d picked out online.

The first dress I tried on (and went back to subsequently) was a full-trained number, pure white, strapless and covered in beadwork. It fit like a dream, weighed at least fifteen pounds, and cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $600. I tried on the lace-all-over, just because I could. I liked it, but I started to see what Kent didn’t like about the style – and it wasn’t the A-line style that flatters me best. I tried on a unique dress that came with a bolo jacket and veils with thick trims that worked with the Spanish-influenced theme of the wedding. The super-simple dresses Kent gravitated toward were just too plain on me.

I tried on more than a dozen dresses. The shopping trip was a success – I definitely had a better idea of what was out there and what I wanted. But before leaving, I had one question for the consultant.

I pulled out a piece of paper and explained that I knew this dress was discontinued, but did they have anything similar – the style that replaced it, perhaps? She cocked her head, took the paper, and said she would be right back.

She emerged a few minutes later with a dress in tow.

“I think this is it,” she said as she handed the dress to me. “I thought we had one left.”

At first I thought she meant they had a similar replacement style, but I soon saw it was The Dress. The Dress I’d first seen online months before. In my size.

Despite the fatigue of more than two hours of trying on dressed, I rushed back into the dressing room with great excitement. I pulled the dress on. It wasn’t just in my size – it fit me perfectly, brushed the floor just at the right length.

I bolted out of the dressing room toward a pedestal in front of the mirror-lined walls, and stared. I stared at The Dress, then at Sarah, then back at The Dress. Its simple lines struck me as something Kent would appreciate, but it had enough flair to satisfy me. And I kept staring.

“And because it’s a discontinued item,” the consultant mentioned offhandedly, “it’s $99.”

I blinked. And stared.

“We’re supposed to just be looking,” I murmured.

“Mhmm,” Sarah replied, a smile creeping across her face.

“I can’t buy a dress the first time we look,” came my next baiting statement.

“Says who?”

Exactly.

I bought The Dress that night. We put it in the car and celebrated by getting French fries at the McDonalds next door. Because that’s how Alexandria girls celebrate.

I was afraid I would wake up the next morning, not like it anymore, and have to sell it on Craig’s List since it wasn’t returnable. My fears were unfounded. And any doubt I had about whether Kent would like the dress was dispelled by Kent’s first words to me at the altar.

“You look amazing.”

So I guess I did okay.