The Dress Mess

I'm putting this post up because some day, hopefully I will look back and think "You're more insane than usual, Pharon. But it's cool."

I'm shopping for my wedding dress this weekend. 

MY WEDDING DRESS, you guys. Don't worry, I've been panicking enough for all of us. I had my first dress nightmare last night, and it involved a LOT of sequins. Since then, I've been seriously freaking out and crying and then freaking out again. 

Here's why I'm freaking out. Out of all the dresses in all the magazines and websites that I've ever seen, I'm supposed to just PICK ONE and decide it's the most important dress I'll ever own. But even THAT'S not the hardest part. I have to find something that fits, that flatters my color, that shows off my assets, that is in my budget, that fits the tone of my wedding, AND that I like. So much pressure on one giant dress.

I attempted to tone down the craziness by making a spreadsheet of all my wants/desires/realities/body hang ups. Then I cross-referenced those with the magazine pics I've haphazardly ripped out of magazines and came up with like 2 dresses. TWO DRESSES. That's it. That's all I have to choose from, apparently. I thought organizing my thoughts would help. It didn't. 

Now, like a baby learning to swim, I'm being launched into the deep end of the pool this weekend. (OMG, I'm pretty sure that's not how you're supposed to teach a baby to swim. Keep me away from babies and pools.) But I'm going this weekend to some shmancy dress boutiques with my mom, my sisters and my niece and I'm going to be prancing around in lace and tulle, acting like I know what I'm doing. 

Nothing will fit. Nothing will look good. EVERYTHING will look good. I will never stop crying. I will never get "the feeling." Everything is too expensive. I'll like it now and hate it in 10 months. These, people, are my obsessive, crazy-intense fears of shopping for a wedding dress. I'm pretty sure I can't do this.

So far, I have yet to get "excited" about this process. To me, it's the most personal part of the whole wedding process. My dress is the one thing that will not affect any other person at the wedding. It's mine. It's totally mine. And I'm either going to go bat$hit crazy and get something with bald eagle feathers and blood diamonds, or I'm going to panic too hard and end up walking down the aisle in my giant jeans and a wolf sweatshirt. 

I don't know what I want. What if I put on a giant white cupcake dress and love it? I HATE giant white cupcake dresses! Also, there's a BILLION weeks between now and my wedding. What if I choose something too trendy and it's OUT OF STYLE or, worse, CLICHE by next August?

Yeah. I don't want to do this. I'm scared and self-conscious and freaking the eff out. I can't just pick out a dress and be super psyched about it for the rest of my life. I once chose a high school dance dress that was enormous and gold and I thought it was amazing, but now I'm all "Ugh. Poser. Who did you think you were, Cinderella? IDIOT."

It's going to be a sleepless couple of nights, you guys. Come Saturday night, I will either have found my wedding dress or will be so angry that I DIDN'T find a dress and I will be curled up on the couch, sipping on some whiskey (serious events call for serious booze) either super relaxed or crazy-stressed. I'll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, if you guys have any tips for me, slap 'em in the comments and I'll check them out between heaving sobs. :)