If you’ve been the mother of a groom or bride, then I’m pretty sure this blog will strike a chord deep in your soul. If not, then consider yourself forewarned. From the moment our son’s forever person said yes, I entered my personal portal of hell.
Before we get started, let me make it blatantly clear how grateful I am. You see, this July our son is getting married. He found the most wonderful person to spend the rest of his life with and we couldn’t be more delighted with his choice. She is kind, loving, thoughtful, intelligent, respectful, hardworking and a family girl. She betters our family in every way possible and we couldn’t love her any more than we already do. That’s not the problem.
The problem is choosing a dress to wear for their wedding celebration. I want to meld into their day just like she melds into our family. I want to spend little and look great. And yes, I am fully aware how shallow this worry is but sharing my personal struggles with my readers is what I do.
My friends were quite vocal about their shock that I hadn’t begun my dress search yet. Similar to the way I historically dismissed advice about childbirth and parenting, I smiled, respectfully listened, but in the end dismissed their sage advice believing that would never be the case for me.
Welp, apparently my friends were right—finding a MOG (Mother of Groom) dress was indeed complicated. My first waste of time was going to department stores only to be redirected to their website. Once online, I crammed to comprehend each of their return policies as if I were taking the Bar exam, only then did I begin my search.
I wasn’t looking for anything ridiculous really. I just wanted a beautiful, flattering, unique dress that would match the happiness inside my heart. I wanted to put it on and know right away it was the one for me. I wanted love at first sight. After endless hours of hunting for the right size, color, style and price point I ended up ordering over seventeen gowns and picked up nagging carpal tunnel, too, from all the time spent clicking to browse and buy.
As the boxes began to arrive it became crystal clear I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what I was searching for. It seemed I was choosing gowns that looked good on the models forgetting they are typically 5-foot-11 or taller and have the body of a giraffe when I hardly hit 5-foot-1 these days and resemble more of a koala. So, when I say every dress was pretty ridiculous on my “small frame”, I’m not exaggerating. It wasn’t even just the styles but the sizing was all off, too. With each dress my self-esteem sunk, and my insecurities rose.
For some levity I began giving each dress a name. There was Glinda—blue, sparkly, just missing the wand. Baby Ruth was metallic bronze, fitted and, well, you can guess the rest. Three dresses looked like I was working a street corner; Vivian, Kit and Julia. Lest we leave out Cleopatra, Carmela Soprano and Violet Beauregard.
Good news is I was able to return them all for a full refund. Bad news was I was back at square one. That’s when my friend dragged me to a few local wedding shops. It’s there I learned what did and didn’t look good on me, but most of all I learned buying a size up makes a seamstress’ life much easier. My mind grasped that concept, but my heart wasn’t on board at all.
Armed with this new knowledge and another friend with a no-nonsense attitude coupled with great fashion sense, I ordered five more dresses. After praying to the dress gods above I have whittled it down to two. One dress captured my heart. I call her Robin. She needs quite a bit of tailoring, okay maybe a lot, but when I am in that dress, I feel my heart flutter in happiness. The other dress fits me perfectly. It’s comfortable, flattering and beautiful. Most of my people like this one best. But when I am in it, I feel like I belong on the set of “Dynasty.” I call this one Krystle.
I’ve been pondering both these dresses for weeks now. It reminds me of my younger days when I was dating. All my friends liked the nice safe pretty perfect guy but I was attracted to the gorgeous risky one who wasn’t a perfect fit for me. My friends were right, he wasn’t for me. I wonder if this time around I will smile, respectfully listen, but again dismiss their sage advice?
Torn between two…dresses,
A little thing you should know:
Robin, Krystle and I met with the seamstress. She eyed them both up and admitted she was torn too. She gently suggested I get Robin one size up to be able to make all the alterations I was suggesting. So we wait … and in the meantime, I am now hunting for undergarments. I say hunting because they are the enemy. If you’ve ever worn them, you know they promise to smooth out all the parts you’d rather not share with the world. What they forget to mention is when it’s time to get out of them, you may need to call on the Jaws of Life!