PART TWO: The Dress
If you read my last week’s column, you will remember that this is a continuation of the fiasco that was my son’s wedding. Nothing I plan ever goes well, and this wedding was a prime example, so I will continue “PART THREE: The Husband” next week.
I was so excited about this wedding and wanted everything to be perfect. So we rented out an atrium at a hotel, found a caterer for the dinner, hired a DJ, and sent out invitations. All I needed was a dress for the wedding.
Driving past a store one day, I saw a beautiful lavender dress…I wanted that dress with its matching sequined jacket. The store was questionable, but I REALLY wanted that dress. So I went in, ordered the dress in a size smaller than I usually wear, then lost 30 pounds. I had it all planned.
Um…but the floor-length dress cost $500. I know, I know…that was stupid, but my son was only getting married once. I wanted to spare no expense, so I ordered it.
While waiting for the dress to arrive at the store, my daughter-in-law decided that all the bridesmaids would wear pink knee-length dresses. Okay, so I would just have the tailor cut off the bottom of that lavender $500 dress. It would hurt, but I would recover because that lavender dress had an awesome sequined jacket that went with it. And never mind that her colors were pink and mint green.
The day of the rehearsal dawned and my first stop was at the dress shop because my dress was still there; the tailor had been late finishing the hemming. I didn’t have time to try it on, so I grabbed it, flew out the door and drove to the hotel an hour away. We were going to spend the night at the same hotel where we were hosting the rehearsal dinner. I hung it up in the closet, then went down for the party.
Later that night and tired after a successful party, I went up to the hotel room and decided to try on my dress. I put it on, looked in the mirror, and was delighted. It was beautiful. It was perfect…until my husband spoke up.
“You can’t wear that dress,” he said flatly.
“What?”
He repeated himself. “You can’t wear that dress.”
“What? Why not!” I demanded.
“Turn sideways and look at your rear end,” he said.
I turned and took in a sideways view. WHAT?! It looked like someone had stuffed a grapefruit or softball under the dress at my lower back.
I yanked off the dress and turned it inside out. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
The tailor had hemmed the outside of the dress, but pulled up the lining, rolled it in a ball, and stitched it. It was a mess and impossible to wear the next day for the wedding. What was I going to do?
The next morning, I was up like a shot and running throughout the mall looking for a substitute dress but found nothing knee-length. I was forced to go with Plan B. Reluctantly, I called my other son who was still at home and told him to bring me the dress covered in plastic hanging in my closet. It was an Easter dress that I had purchased on a lark and never worn. Ironically, it would match the wedding colors perfectly; it was mint green linen with tiny pink flowers embroidered around the sleeves.
And so I walked down the aisle as the mother of the groom wearing my a $12 dollar dress from Walmart.
And the $500 dress? I took it back to the store, demanded they fix it, went back the next week to pick it up, but the store had closed down and left…taking my dress with them. I never saw it again.
But I do have an awesome sequined jacket…that matches nothing.
