For the past several days I’ve been on FULL STEAM AHEAD.  Not out in the yard, but in every bridal shoppe in town.  Not to mention the mall, several discounters, the outlet stores, a couple thrift shops, and that one really funky vintage clothing boutique downtown.  Plus, thanks to cyberspace, I’ve been cruising every upscale retailer in the country.  All in the quest for THE DRESS.

Back in December I posted about my sister getting engaged.  I joked about being Matro(FU)N of Honor, wearing a Scarlet O’Hara=esque gown, and so on.  Well, fast forward five months.  The wedding is now sitting on top of us and I’ve yet to secure a real dress.  I may joke about a lot of things, but this is not funny.

Without disclosing her private life, my sister is in a grueling school program which barely allows for sleep, let alone shopping.  The fact that she lives 1000 miles away isn’t helping.  Thank GOD she has her own dress already!!  But.. I hear you saying.. the mother of the bride always fills in the gap.  The mother of the bride buys a dress for herself, then helps the bride select dresses for her party, and the bluebirds sing while little fairies float around their heads and they all live happily ever after.  Well, of course.  Except our mother is a high powered executive currently employed out of state.  So NONE of us are together.  And if you haven’t gleaned this quite yet, I am not exactly a shopper.  Don’t get me wrong, if I had bags of money I wouldn’t have a problem spending hours each week in stores, but my life is not like that.  I wouldn’t know an upscale dress shoppe if it bit me on the a$$.  Which IT HAS.

Yesterday I had on a dress that costs more than I have in the bank.  It was gorgeous.  I wanted it BAD.  But it wasn’t quite right.  The day before I tried on roughly 25 dresses at a lovely bridal place downtown.  Many of them were stunning, but none of them was IT.  I have been to Macy’s more times in the past week than I have since we moved here.  I keep pretending this dress is going to magically appear from doors at the back of the store, but it’s NOT!!  I’m just trying on the same damn things I did the day before.

I want my sister to be happy.  I want her wedding to be perfect.  And in my own way I am trying to make that so.  But it is leading me to obsess.  And as many lovely dresses I have seen, in every color of the rainbow except for the one that I NEED, I have seen an equal number that should be stripped from the racks & burned.  The running joke used to be how ugly bridesmaid dresses are.  I think the backlash against hideousness has gone so far in the opposite direction, we’re now actually worse off.  I will be blunt.  I know every woman wants to look sexy and appealing, but if you are unable to discern the fine line between “gorgeous” and “cheap ho” please do us all a favor and stay home.  A wedding is sacred, or should be.  The BRIDE is meant to stand out, not your floozy self. Let’s show some CLASS, Ladies!

And on that note, I am off.  So many dresses to eyeball, only so many hours in the day.  Wish me luck.