Knit Sisters

Yesterday was the “sixty-days-left-to-the-Big-Event!” milestone, a fact I was reminded of by one of our on-line registries—which seems to have taken it upon itself to tell me every time I log on how many days are “left.”

It’s basically the marital version of the Doomsday Clock.

I very clearly remember when there were 272 days left and now there are only sixty. Huh.

There has been very little knitting done around here, except for a little work on the pink socks, which endear themselves more greatly to me every day. They remind me of a favorite pair of pink socks I had when I was sixteen, a pair which passed on to their sock-y reward lo these many years ago, along with the rest of my Madonna Wanna-Be garments of the same era.

The day was observed with a visit to the Bridal Barn for my first gown fitting. In this awesome undertaking I was accompanied by my friend Nasser, who kindly gave me what my friends in New York used to refer to as “the gift of arrival.” In most areas of the country “the gift of arrival” is probably a puzzling concept, but in NYC, where only a tiny minority of our circle of friends owned cars, a person who drove you somewhere was bestowing a very great gift indeed.

Even now, Alex and I are “car-free” (note positive spin on yet another graduate school, poverty-induced inconvenience!) so Nasser and his Ford Taurus have on occasion helped us out when public transportation has proved to have its limits. Such was the case yesterday.

Besides, even if there had been a bus to the Bridal Barn, I couldn’t have availed myself of its service, burdened as I was by a seventy-pound wedding gown in an unwieldy garment bag, and two large shopping bags filled with shoes, undergarments, and various species of headdress.

It was frankly bordering on the absurd.

So is the fact that by my count, the bustle on my dress is going to have EIGHT attachment points. EIGHT! The Bridal Barn staff in fact recommended that I bring the person who would help dress me on my wedding day to the next fitting so that she might memorize the pattern of the bustle attachments. Since that person is my dear sister, and since she lives in the Midwest, that simply won’t be possible.

We’ll have to rely on our wits!

Dear Lord, is it possible that two women with some knowledge of garment-making and four degrees between them will not be able to figure out a bustle? Say it ain’t so!

Repeat after me: I will not to be outwitted by a flippin’ dress. I will not be outwitted by a flippin’ dress. I will not be outwitted by a flippin’ dress.

I am strong. I am invicible. I am WOMAN!

I will not be outwitted by my own wedding dress.

The Lost Patio of Atlantis is another matter entirely. Note that twenty more stones have been removed from their place in nature. Twenty-nine remain. And yes, for those of you keeping score at home, I low-balled the total the first time. It was a necessary delusion.

I helped. It simply could not have been achieved without my assistance.

So…eight bustle attachment points plus hemming the gown: it took over an hour for the lovely alterations woman at the Bridal Barn just to pin all that up. Bless her heart. Whatever she’s paid, it isn’t enough.

Especially considering that she told me that I didn’t look a day over twenty-seven.

Nasser, however, had a rougher experience. While I was slowly transforming into a walking pin-cushion, Nasser was waiting outside. Which meant he was on the front lines of the Junior-Senior Prom Crowd. I didn’t witness any of this, but Nasser expressed his extreme dismay at the directness, even brutality, with which the mothers commented on the relative physical gifts or lack thereof of their daughters. Who were trying on the prom dresses, of course.

Now. I just need to say—although I know none of our readers are actually the perpetrators here—that we have got to stop this. As women, we have got to stop this. We have got to stop making other women, especially young women, feel like their worth depends on the size of their boobs and their behinds. It’s damaging, it’s retrograde, it’s insidious. It cuts against everything we’ve worked for and it’s not a minor problem.

Are ya through preachin’, Ma? Cause we’re all kinda tired.

Enough said. We all get the point.

Me? I’m pleased to report that, in spite of the pressures of the bridal industry, I have not dropped a dress size. Nope. The wedding gown still fits as beautifully as it did when I bought it last June.

Except that now there’s an eight-attachment bustle to contend with…but Sarah and I are up to the challenge.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Bridezilla, Sock it to me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.