The Perfect Dress

So I found “The Perfect Dress.” It happened a lot more matter-of-factly than I thought it would. Believe it or not, the heavens actually did not part when I found, “The Dress.” Believe it or not, a choir of Spanish monks did not emerge from the storeroom to sing an “Ode to the Dress” in Gregorian Chant. Believe it or not, my mother did not spontaneously burst into tears when I emerged from the dressing room in “Theeee Dress.” How dare I make such a claim to have found “The Dress” during a perfectly normal dress fitting in a perfectly normal dress shop, where a perfectly normal salesgirl would assist me in diving in and out of perfectly normal white gowns.

So if none of the romanticized heaven-beaming-down-its-joy signals revealed it was, “The Dress,” then how did I know?! I have no idea! I JUST DID! I guess it’s because it’s the first dress I tried on that I didn’t necessarily want to put back on the rack. I just wanted to walk around in it and view it from every possible angle in every possible mirror. And I wanted to sit and drink tea with my pinkie finger pointing to the sky. And--I really wanted Clay to see me in it. (Don’t worry--he still has to wait till August 2nd.)

After about ten minutes of parading around in “The Alleged-and-Potentially ‘The’ Dress,” Mom asked (matter-of-factly), “Heather, is this the dress.” I was momentarily confused. How could she ask such a thing? Obviously not! There were no choirs of angels! There was no fissure in the sky through which a booming voice was saying, “This is Heather’s wedding dress with which I am well pleased.” No, it was just my mom’s voice asking, “Is this the dress?” A simple yes or no question. How anti-climactic!!!

But this whole wedding business started by saying a very simple “yes” to a very simple question. (The question was, “Will you marry me?” just in case you were a little slow on the uptake there.) So, it strikes me that weddings are very beautiful and terribly romantic, and in the midst of all the romanticized beauty, they’re also very simple. Simple in a good way...but sometimes romantic and over the top makes a better story:

Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. Boy asks girl if she wants to get hitched. Girl says, “YES!” Girl begins wedding plans. Boy plays video games. Mom flies to town to go dress shopping with girl. After days of searching over hill and dale, the perfect dress remains elusive. Exhausted and heartbroken, mom and girl take a bit of respite by a glassy pond near a golden meadow. A tear drops from girl’s face into the glassy lake, causing ripples to softly move across the water’s surface. Suddenly, the heavens part and a radiant and perfect dress emerges up from the pond and choirs of angels come towards the girl singing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!” Mom turns to girl and says, “Is this the dress?” Girl cries out, “Yes!”

Yeah...And...it pretty much happened just like that.