A Bride's Story

Once upon a time, there were four women setting out on an adventure. They were in search of the engaged lady's holy grail, otherwise known as... The Wedding Dress. And, the story goes....

First the foursome entered Demetrios, a store that had done a different friend of ours a great service, as it provided her "the one." That dress that you put on and know that it is the absolute most perfect dress for her special day. Homa, the bride, didn't feel quite the same. When I entered the store, she had that same look on her face that a deer has right before a semi turns it into ground venison. Veronica, the lovely sales rep who served our other friend so well, had a look of confusion. I stepped in, we looked, and suddenly Homa started seeing things she was interested in. All things positive ended right there. Once the dresses were hung in the fitting room with care, all hell broke loose.

You see, Demetrios, while a lovely establishment in theory, is actually evil. In the same way that Cruella Deville seemed nice when all she wanted to do was buy a puppy, and then she turned out to be a dog skinner/coat maker, Demetrios is a self esteem skinner. Their sample sizes are itty bitty, and if you yourself are not itty bitty, they send you out to face a firing squad of reflective surfaces with all your parts and pieces hanging out. Oh wait, they actually clip someone's used hanky to your back as if that somehow hides the fact that your dress is unzippable. And, my friends and readers, those were the good ones. The bad ones were the dresses whose sample sizes are too small for Kate Moss in her coke days. Those, Homa wouldn't even leave the dressing room in, as they did not cross her midsection. So, after disappearing into the abyss for some time, Homa emerged looking defeated, broken and pathetic and she said, "That's it. I'm done. And I'm not going anywhere else either." Insert hang dog expression, slumped shoulders, and pity here. Luckily, though, she trudged onward, and actually, upward.

Our next store, Poesy Patch Bridal Superstore went much better. There were sample dresses there, that (get this concept) actually fit people of the non-toothpick variety. And, Homa tried on this.

And she looked like this:

Which is great, because that was the highlight of the day. She hasn't purchased the dress yet, but she looked gorgeous, and if she chooses this one, she will be a knock out.

But, after that, we went on to lunch. At lunch, a discovery was made. During the entire shopping trip, both stores, Homa's beautiful mother had a distasteful expression on her face. After awhile, I started to wonder if that was just her natural expression. My dad's resting face is a tad surly, so I started to wonder if perhaps Homa's Mama was the same way. It was a face that looked rather like she ate something sour and was pissed about it. Something like this:

We started discussing the fabulous plans for Homa's bridal shower, when Homa's Mama made that same surly face. She did have lemon in her soda, so I thought perhaps she sucked some of the fruit through her straw, but then Homa's sister issued the threat that clarified everything. She said, "if you make that face every time we discuss my wedding, I will kill you." Homa's Mama replied in her thick accent, "it will depend on the man you marry." A ha. Homa Mama doesn't just look perturbed as her natural expression. She is perturbed. Then, I realized, I was making that face back at her. While I appreciated her generosity in paying for my chicken tenders (which I did eat, and yes, I am over the age of 5, but I was trying not to order anything messy wearing my winter white sweater vest, and yes I order food based on my clothing), I didn't appreciate her stinginess when it came to supporting her daughter. The reality is that very few parents get the privilege of marrying off their children to the identical spouse that they would pick themselves. (I know mine sure didn't. Just kidding, Mark. I threw that in just for you.) But, I think all parents should have the goal of making their children happy. And if the man that your daughter picks is at heart, a good man, then I think you do your part and get past it. A little support from something other than Homa's Spanx would have been nice.

That, my dears, leads us to the third place. A store that I would like to refer to as a fiery pit of hell, David's Bridal. Now, there is nothing wrong with this store. It has been the vendor to many of my friends' dresses and the bridesmaid dresses at my own wedding. But, I knew that Homa's clan wasn't thrilled about going to such a cheap chain store. It was like taking people who wanted a Morton's filet to Applebee's for their sumptuous sirloin. But, I knew they would have things that wouldn't reduce my dear friend to jello, and so we entered. Zain, Homa's sister, had the expression on her face that contestants on Fear Factor used to have right before they had to eat Bison testicles. I am pretty sure that is why Tameka, our sales rep, hated us with the fire of 1,000 suns. That, or it is because Zain said really loudly, "If you buy something from here, I am not going to your wedding." Those or it was because Homa walked up to the first four dresses Tameka picked out and said, "I am not trying those on." Any of those options could be why Tameka finally just pointed toward the wedding dresses and said, "Go look yourself" (which sounded really a lot like "go f--- yourself").

After looking (and not f-ing) ourselves, we found a few for Homa to try on. That's when the last debacle occurred. Homa tried on a dress that I encouraged. It was fun. It was flirty. Here, I'll show it to you, oh wait... they are a bunch of Nazis and won't let me copy the picture. Punks. Anyway, it was... out of the box, to say the least. Zain hated it. I loved it. And let's just be honest, Zain had already issued the threat that she would boycott the wedding if Homa wore anything from that store. And let's be honest again. This is Zain:

And this is me:

Pretty sure no one is going to assume that we have the same aesthetic. So, Zain liked the one pictured above, and I like the funky flirty one that David's "Scrooge Face" Bridal won't let me publish, and poor, poor Homa was in between. Luckily, on that tense note, we called it a day.

So, four women who started the day bright eyed and bushy tailed, ended it battered, beaten and worst of all.... right where we started, without a dress. Oh, and did I mention her wedding is 6 months away?!?!? Yeah. The end.