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Racing
toward love Strapped! Mommy
Diarist The
Guilty Bride Introducing
… IndieEtiquette Bride,
Unhinged When
Wedding Dresses Attack! Book
Review: The Artful Bride The
B-word My
Best Friends' Weddings When
Bachelors Go Bad O
Brother Wed Art Thou The
Mythology of Marriage A
Marriage of My Own Why
I Popped the Question My
Wedding, My Way Happily
Ever After Am
I Really That Single? -----------
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When By Eve Simon FALL 2003 | Weddings breed a certain type of insanity all their own. Sometimes it's family. Sometimes it's money. Sometimes it's religion. And sometimes, it's the clothes. Hands down, there is no experience in the world quite like shopping for, paying for, and getting fitted for The Dress. "It's up there with the exquisite pain of root canal, and the agony of Thanksgiving at your mother in law's. Horrors one must endure, but which are usually forgotten (or rather, blacked out) after they're over." The last thing I wanted to do was go to a big poofy bridal shop with Big Poofy Dresses and Big Poofy People. I was having a medieval wedding for Christ's sake. I was an iconoclast. I was a rebel. I was Zena, Queen of the non-girly. But my mother had dreamt of the day I would go to the Big Poofy Place and have people fawn all over me, so I acquiesced, wholly expecting to get my dress elsewhere. And while I lived to tell the tale, I have to say that it was a real close call. Picture the scene: You enter a locker-room sized space, whose walls are lined with individually wrapped, white, glowing creatures, hanging gently in the undulating breeze of the air conditioning. Like Odysseus, the Sirens call to you. They mesmerize you. They enrapture you. And they all look the same. Oh God. I'll never make it out of here alive. Suddenly, out of the enveloping mist comes a short woman. No, several short women. Waddling. Snorting. With glasses. And measuring tapes. Flee. Save yourself. GetOutBeforeYouDie. You look around for someplace to hide, something to shelter you from the onslaught, but there is nothing but White. Your beloved friends and family who brought you to this evil land of dread hold you back, calling you strange names like "Bride". Panic sets in, and the sounds of the foreign creatures gets louder and louder, ringing in your ears until a mirage of soft silk and delicate satin begins to swim before your eyes. As you start to lose your footing, you see a glowing point of light in the distance. You are powerless to escape its grasp as everything goes black. You awake, disoriented, in a small room that smells faintly of hairspray. Your clothes are gone. Terrified, you slowly look down at your body and the horrible truth reveals itself. You're in lingerie. Not just lingerie, but "foundation garments". Granny panties hold in your gut and make your ass look flat. A corset squeezes your ribcage to half its normal size and pushes your boobs into your sinuses. And no. It can't be. No, no, no. Not that. Stockings with garters. You try to scream, but nothing comes out. And as you fruitlessly try to claw and scratch your way out, you realize with horror that your veal pen is locked from the outside. "How are you doing, dahhling?" a voice from beyond caws. "Let me know when you're in one." In one what? What fresh hell is this? And it is then, and only then, that you feel a weighty presence behind you. The room begins to glow gently, and you turn around expecting the worst to find ... five wedding dresses hanging on the hook. Carefully, you approach, touching only the slips of paper on the sleeves that read "$10,000.00", "$7,500","$1950.00." You've got to be kidding me. "I'm coming in, DaHHHHling. I hope you picked a good one!" Before you can brace the doorknob with the clothing rack, you're suddenly exposed, foundation garments and all and someone is pawing at you. "Oh, sweetHAAArt! You should have said you were having trouble. Let's put this one on." Your strength fails you, rendering you unable to escape her talons. Suddenly you're engulfed in a cloud of white fluff that sounds like a wind machine when you try to move. Which you try not to do. Or breathe. Or speak. You will yourself to wake up, but God is cruel and ignores your anguished cries for help. "Well, this doesn't quite fit you... all of our dresses are size 8. But i'll just get some clothespins, and it will be fine." Clip my size 14 frame with those things, Buelah, and you'll draw back a stump. But alas, she is too quick, and before you know it, you're outside of your Satin Cell, standing on a dais in front of the biggest, most flaw enhancing 12 way mirror you've ever seen, with your ass hanging out the back of a size 8 wedding dress like a hospital gown. Skinny brides, zipped up snugly in perfect dresses glide by, surely pointing and laughing at the big girl in the little dress. Or at least thatÍs what you think. And damn the bad luck -- you left your Ninja throwing knives in your other garters. "SOooOOOO? Isn't it just to die for?" your tormenter cackles. Your mother coos with delight. Your friends get misty eyed looking at you. And the warthog in saleslady's clothing is beside herself with glee. "Oh yes, this is the one.Yes Yes Yes. What a Bride she is, such a beauty! It's a Mitzvah!" F*ck you, you f*cking f*ck. Ok, think fast. Think fast. Maybe you can retain a single shred of dignity by paying this foul beast tons of money for a half fitting shower curtain. Plastic magically appears in your mother's hand, and the half-human, half-devil creature grabs it with her cloven hoof and withdraws from the scene. Six months later After waking from being chloroformed, you're back in the veal pen. But there's only one dress keeping you company this time. Curious. It looks familiar. Almost, pretty, even. But what am I to do with it? Your drug addled mind is fuzzy, and suddenly the door opens. "Sveetie, you must step into it ziz way," a new jailer announces. She seems nicer than the warthog, more understanding, much gentler, just so nice and sweet and lovely and... and.. Get the f*ck out from under my dress, you spawn of satan's whore. But you're too late. She has disappeared under the acres of white fabric, agenda unknown. That is until hands reach up, pull your control top panty hose (by now you have nixed the call-girl garters) up and over your corset, and snaps it back hard. Must kill seamstress. Must find seamstress. "It Vill keep za corset from showink through da fabrick, sveetie," You think you hear her say, muffled between your thighs. Eventually, she crawls out from under you, her frizzy hair mussed, a pincushion attached to her wrist like a macabre corsage, and you give in. Pins surround your hem. Your ass becomes the landing pad for a 60 pound bustle. Piles of fabric are placed on your head and thrown over your face, and as you begin to lurch backwards under the weight of it all, you are pushed out once more into the MirrorZone. Eyes closed, you refuse to look. Elopement. That's the ticket. I must've been on crack to agree to this crap. But you half open one eye, and are startled beyond rational thought. Someone is there, looking back, and it just can't be you. It's too delicate. Too ethereal. Too... white. It's a bride. And God save us all. ----------- Eve Simon is a web designer and wedding planner in Washington DC. This October marks her second anniversary, and her husband still talks about how cool her dress was.
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