Addressing the situation: 49 Days to Go

I had my first dress fitting!  It went very well, actually.  It needs to get taken in, but not as much as people feared.  Plus, we're making it a tad shorter in the front so my rockin' purple shoes will peep out when I walk.

Stop the stereotypes, I want to get off!

At times in this whole wedding planning process, I get annoyed at the implication that I, as one who lacks a Y chromosome, have been planning, dreaming about, and obsessing over my wedding since I got my first princess doll shoved into my hands. This is just not the case for me and I assume, despite what all the wedding books, magazines, TV shows and websites say that most brides have not thought of their entire life thus far simply a warm up for a single day.

I mean, look at this girl! She's oozing sweet dreams of wedded bliss. Bonus! She even has her hand on her uterus!

I think the thing that annoys me the most is that it seems to be so accepted that all little girls want is to be pretty (and a mommy). I'm not saying that those are bad qualities... they aren't... and I'm not saying that we don't encourage our girls to aspire to more. But I think we need to give our little girls fewer dolls and more LEGOs.

But that's not to say this hasn't been a ton of fun. It really has been!

Take my dress, for instance. The gown is really the epicenter of the little girl wedding-dream princess-crown thing... but admittedly, despite my being hard hearted when it comes to such fantasies, I really enjoyed trying on dresses. I didn't have a "the one" moment, nor did I or my mother burst into tears, but I did select a dress that could be described as "sexy" and "airy" and "classy" and is entirely unlike anything I would have imagined when I was 6. These are all excellent things.

With butter and everything.

My mother recently arrived with Shanda in tow to perform a little wedding dress shopping. Leaving good Sir Robert to fend for himself this time, we headed straight for David's Bridal where I desperately wanted to try on this dress. I loved everything about this dress, especially the back... that is, until I tried it on. It just didn't fit, even after going up 2 dress sizes.

I was, as can be understood by anyone who has gone through this farce, annoyed. Not just at the disappointment of my dream dress being less-than-dreamy, but by all of a sudden finding myself looking at 4 numbers higher on my dress tags.

I find it easier than to bitch about wedding dress trends, rather than worry about whether or not my diet will slim me down in time. Take the disturbing phenomena of looking precisely like a Disney princess (tiara and all) on your wedding day. Listen, if Princess Grace didn't wear a tiara, what makes you think you can? Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh... but I really don't see the appeal of wearing anything that appeals equally to 5 year olds and brides.

Or how about the dresses where you look precisely like you're standing in mashed potatoes? Come on, people!

Shadow Over South Park Mall

A man at a wedding dress trunk sale.... insanity! But I was intrigued by the processes that went into this supposedly huge decision undertaken by the opposite sex. And I was determined to be an accommodating groom.

As the sale day was upon me I found myself optimistic while en route to the local mall with my mother, my mother-in-law-to-be, and my beautiful, brilliant, bespectacled bride. Also along for the ride was my book of H.P. Lovecraft stories, should it be necessary to retreat into a more comforting, rational world.

The dresses were condensed in the center of the mall, as if a small island walled up by a border of other wedding vendors. Wedding cakes stretched up like mountains, shadows of salespeople creeped out from every corner. A man supposing himself to be a DJ stood next to a cardboard cut-out of himself. His comb-over was something of unspeakable horror. A short deranged creature reached out to my fiancee and me. She claimed to represent some kind of event space as she asked if we'd already decided upon a reception locale. "Yes" we answered. She insistently gave us her card anyway. I felt myself beginning to slip away from sanity. These things all made no sense. Around me women clamored for gowns like half-wild beasts. The massive white monstrosities that claimed to be dresses seemed as if they had been fashioned from some strange other world or time. I gasped for my breath, trying to make sense of the ritual that surrounded me. But before I could, a frilly white obscenity came collapsing down upon me. Oh the fabric.... Oh the lace.... Oh the horror!

I gathered that my darling Erica too was struck by the madness all around us. Yet she fared better. Perhaps there really was some genetic gender-specific disposition that allowed her to comprehend that which we were witnessing. She was steadfast and when she grabbed some dresses to try on and beckoned I leave I couldn't have been anything other than appreciative. Ah to the safety of my book.

Millenia later my darling emerged displeased by the ensembles she had donned. We were all going home. The nightmare had ended, yet I shan't forget that place where satin, taffeta, tulle and comb-overs converge in a grotesque paean to unholy things that no man should ever have to know.