Every bridesmaid harbours reservations about their dress. Will their bride make them look like an overstuffed couch? Will there be unflattering puffs, tucks and pleats? Will the fabric glitter and sheen unflatteringly over every curve? And really, what are the odds that you'll ever be able to wear it again? When I got married I wanted my bridesmaids to look elegant and feel comfortable. After all, they were my closest friends and dearest family members. I didn't want them looking like mangled puffer fish. We managed to chose a dress style to suit them all, despite wildly varying sizes and I made sure that they were all happy with the style and colour. I thought this was fairly normal bride behaviour but the lady who owned the store informed me that I was almost unique. Most brides have a vision and very few care whether the size, shape and colouring of their maids fit it. Which is why the hideous spectre of bridesmaid dresses of yore haunts all maids-in-waiting.
I've already mentioned in this blog how much my baby brother means to me. He's been my lifelong companion, he's one of my best friends...and now he's all grown up and engaged. I consider myself beyond lucky because he's chosen a wonderful partner who I love very much to be his bride. When they started planning their wedding I was delighted to be asked to be a bridesmaid and I instantly and unthinkingly agreed. Four seconds later I started freaking out about the dress. My one consolation was that even though we're different sizes, all of the bridesmaids are fairly well endowed up top. So I was fairly confident that I wouldn't be squeezed into a shimmery sheath dress designed for a respectable B-cup in a push-up bra.
The first plan was to have the dresses made through an online wholesaler. I showed up to the house of a seamstress known to the bride who seemed concerned that all the manufacturers wanted was a bust, waist and hip measurement. I could see her point. With an empire line sitting just under the breast, you don't really want it to be ten centimetres too short and bisecting the nipples. Not attractive.
A few weeks later and I had a call from the bride who announced that she'd found four really pretty matching dresses at a shop in Tuggeranong that she thought would fit all four of us. She described them as "sort of a cerise, deep pink dress that's very floaty and pretty with spaghetti straps". When asked about the online manufacturer I'm told there were language barriers which undermined her confidence a little. Off-the-rack retail is plan B. Plus there's an alteration place right next to the store where we can have them fitted if we need to.
I promise the bride I'll go and try one on the next day. When I hang up Charles, who knows all about my dress anxiety, asks me how it sounds. I tell him it sounds like I will look like a dragonfruit.
The following day I strap both kids into the car and drive for forty minutes all the way across town. The shop is closed. Closer inspection reveals that every other store in the mall opens at ten but they're not open until eleven. So I need to "fill in" my time elsewhere with a distracted Charlotte and a rapidly deteriorating James. At 11:15 the door finally rolls up and flustered me plus bored-out-of-their-skulls-to-the-point-of-chronic-naughtiness kiddies troop in. The saleswoman produces a dragonfruit-coloured sheath that might fit a swizzle stick if she diets for a couple of months. It looks lovely where it is but a cloud of doom is brewing - I am not shaped remotely like a coat hanger. It turns out that the perception of small size is a product of the way it hangs from the 2-minute-noodle-sized straps and it's a lot bigger than first thought. Although not in the way it needs to be.
I manage to get it on easily enough and it falls beautifully from the empire line to just below my knees (meant to be mid-calf apparently but I'm freakishly tall for this particular store's standards). The problem is that the top bit cannot be persuaded to even think about coming up over my nipples. It's designed for a B-cup and my ladies were somewhat....bustier...even before they started feeding a small Viking. Now they're as close to a B-cup as Marilyn Manson is to God.
As soon as I get the horror off I am subjected to the most humiliating, soul-destroying conversation I've ever been forced to have with a retail person. She suggests that perhaps I could buy "a nice black dress" from "somewhere else" and "find a flower in the same colour as the other dresses" to pin onto my...garment. Her manner conveys that perhaps I will locate the little black dress of my dreams from the costume department at Taronga Zoo. She asks if I'm the maid of honour. I tell her I don't think so. Well maybe the bride can make me the maid of honour so I can be dressed differently to the other girls. She throws in that she's happy to discuss these issues with the bride directly if I like. Her tone leaves me in no doubt that she's not about to let a fatty get in the way of a bloody good sale. And she's not about to let me leave the store until I agree to her plan to get me to wear black to my brother's wedding and stand like a funeral usher next to some beautifully styled chickees in gorgeous flowing cerise numbers. That's about the point where I've had enough. It's been a long time since I've felt this horrible but she's edging me closer to tears with every condescending sentence.
I've tried being delicate and polite but clearly Ms Make-A-Sale is going to set the tone of the conversation to rude and confrontational. I tell her that I'm quite capable of discussing my "options" with the bride but I will pull out of being a bridesmaid altogether before I will wear black to my brother's wedding. I am not in mourning over the fact that he's found the love of his life and that he wants to make a lifelong commitment to her. She shuts up immediately and we're finally allowed to leave. I strongly resist the urge to console myself with donuts and vodka. Then I go home and tell Charles all about the hideous experience.
Finally I have to call the bride. I'm very nervous and upset because I want to simply tell her that the dress is lovely and I instantly bought all four. I don't want to be the problem bridesmaid. So I'm slightly high-pitched and hysterical before I even start yammering. As the phone rings I get to thinking that the vodka wasn't such a bad idea.
I start out quite calmly (I think) but I quickly get down to it. I tell her that I look like a dragonfruit. I tell her that even if I were dead six months they'd probably need a stick of butter to grease me into that dress and that no amount of alteration will make my ladies fit. I tell her all about Ms Make-A-Sale and how she's willing to "discuss options". Finally I offer my personal opinion that we might have more luck shopping at a dedicated wedding outfit store or having some dresses custom made to the bride's requirements by a local seamstress. And, knowing that the happy couple are on a budget, I offer to pay the difference between their budgeted cost and the actual cost because I'm the reason we're unlikely to be able to find matching off-the-rack dresses. Plus I do not want to be a dragonfruit or a hippo-esque funeral usher with a fake pink flower tacked onto me at their wedding.
Luckily for me the bride is instantly sympathetic. She wants us to be comfortable and pretty. She doesn't want to buy dresses that don't fit from Ms Make-A-Sale and she doesn't want me in black. She asks me to come pick her up straight away for a shopping trip and before I know it we're at Rosies Bridal Warehouse and the woman there is delightful. We tell her about the last experience and she's shocked. She eyes me critically, pulls at my clothes and informs me that I have quite a small waist, lovely height and that I'm not so big - it's just my exceptional ladies. Which means I need to buy a dress size larger than I would normally wear and have it altered to fit.
Then she pulls a stunningly elegant gown from the rack and our eyes bug. Within two minutes we're trying on dresses, giggling, squealing and jumping in excitement. There are veils, lingerie, jewellery, dresses and shoes. I am so excited I'm almost hyperventilating and it looks like the bride is right there with me. There are so many pretty dresses and we can have any style in any size and colour we want. I am so delirious and giddy I think I'm going to pass out. And finally the bride settles on a gorgeous gown with matching wraps that is so classically elegant that we'll be able to wear them again and again. I am so chuffed I could faint.
It's funny how we sometimes don't realise how worried we are about something until after the crisis has passed. The high of the dress triumph doesn't leave me for a solid two days. I am so happy that I will be a bridesmaid - nay - apretty bridesmaid that I float in a bubbly pink air of bliss smiling benevolently at everyone for hours. It's hard enough to live up to the honour of being a bridesmaid - to subject yourself to scrutiny for a whole day, attempt to deliver the perfect day for the people you love the most...I just don't have the words to express how much easier it will all seem from the shell of confidence that a beautiful dress will provide. This blog post is for you Lenks and for everything that you mean to my brother and I. I'm thrilled that he's found such a thoughtful, considerate person to be his life partner and I very much look forward to supporting you as you make your vows. In my lovely, lovely dress.
With much love,
TC
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