The Dress Hunt

So Dana finally found her wedding gown. Finally. What a process!!! So many styles, so many stores. At least there was only one color to choose from. Yup, that big stack of wedding magazines certainly came in handy for the dress hunt.

Dana started looking for her gown simply by going through her endless collection of bridal magazines, ripping out pictures of ones she liked. Along with that, she was glued to the laptop every night flipping through websites, writing down style numbers, comparing prices, and searching for designers she heard about from friends and family.

Then the actual shopping began. She went everywhere. Eastchester. Mamaroneck. Dobbs Ferry. Manhattan. Long Island. Connecticut. If there was a store someone told her about that sold wedding gowns, she went to check it out.

Here's the cool thing about being the groom in this situation. Historically, the groom is not supposed to see the wedding gown before the bride is literally walking down the aisle. Therefore, Dana couldn't drag me along to every bridal shop in the tri-state area (YES!). She had to roll with the gals. Her Mom. Her best friend slash maid of honor. Her sister-in-law. My sister. Her cousin. There was lots of female support in this process, and LOTS OF OPINIONS. But when Dana finally found the gown she wanted, to seal the deal she actually seeked out the opinion of one man and one man only, HER FATHER. He's a cool dude with classic taste, and once he put his seal of approval on it, that was it. Dana ordered the gown. And the fun was over.

Since that glorious day when Dana ordered her gown, she has been much less stressed out about the planning of the wedding, though I can tell she misses shopping for dresses. It was starting to drive her crazy, but she loved the thrill of the hunt. All of our planning took a back seat to her finding the dress.

But here's the catch! She still has to pick out her bridesmaid dresses!!! This is tricky because she's not actually going to be wearing this style of dress, and she has to find one that compliments all the differences in her bridesmaids. And it can't be white! So the big question right now is WHAT COLOR SHOULD THE BRIDESMAID DRESSES BE? Yellow? Pink? Dark purple? So just when I thought it was over, the dress hunt continues, and while I watch Curb Your Enthusiasm re-runs and read the latest Rolling Stone magazine, Dana's back on the Internet looking for the perfect bridesmaid dress.

What's after this? I wonder. Shoes for the bride? Hair styles? Jewelry? Does she need a matching purse? Does the bride even carry a purse? Makeup? So many decisions. I haven't even begun to think about what I'm going to wear for the wedding. Is anyone even going to be looking at me? I'm definitely going to get a haircut. And shave. And I guess one of these days I'll go suit shopping (with Dana of course), but not until the MORE IMPORTANT decisions have been made.

P.S. I'd post a picture of Dana's dress, but it turns out it takes likes six months for it to arrive after the date it was ordered because it is being custom made. I guess it doesn't matter because I've gotta wait until April 19th, 2009 at 2pm to see it anyway. And if I gotta wait, so do you. So instead, here's what our parents wore at their weddings. Radical huh? Peace out.