The Dress, Part One

3 months ago, when all the wedding planning started, I thought I already had a dress.
I was wrong.

I had a lovely ivory sheath dress I purchased, well, um, an emabarrassing 8 years ago that still had never been worn. It was lovely, simple, straight, and I thought it was perfect. Well, almost. It just needed a few nips and tucks here and there, and a bra that could hold "everything" up.

When my Mom and sister first saw me in the dress in September, they were less than pleased. But after much talking and expressing of heartfelt sentiment, they agreed to help me get the dress wedding-day ready.

Just 2 weeks ago they visited for 4 days. By Sunday afternoon, Day 3, I had a new dress.

Now, this may not come as a surprise, but the journey to getting to a new dress was frought with peril. The first was finding underwear. Only, what my sister and mother had in mind was not underwear, but a bodysuit that amounted to a straightjacket.

After searching every store, we finally found what they said was "IT." My sister held up a nude-colored, bustier looking thing complete with boning, built in bra cups to add at least 2 sizes, and thigh hugging things meant to keep the cellulite in, or at least cut off all circulation to the legs.

We proceeded to the dressing room. I was in shock.

All of us crammed into the room (it was the handicapped room, so we had some space) and I undressed and started one of the more humiliating processes in my life. I had to tug, jump, and everything else you could possibly imagine to get in this thing! I actually worked up a sweat. Once it was finally on, my boobs were pushed up, my stomach was sucked in, my butt was contorted, and my thighs had serious marks from the legging things.

It turns out the humiliation wasn't over. I leaned over to find a hole in the crotch area of this crazy piece of fabric. Had I ripped it in the laborious process of getting it on? No. I thought perhaps this was an "easy access" garment...it was going underneath my wedding dress, after all. But WHO would want access to me wearing something as unflattering as this thing? Ugh. Turns out it was the pee-hole, because once you got into this thing, you couldn't possibly get out in time to go to the bathroom.

Needless to say, I did not purchase the crazy thing. This was the beginning of the series of events that led to finding the perfect dress, but not without much trial and tribulation.