Last night, my wonderful husband said my three favorite words—let’s eat out. He and I went out to dinner at the local university club with another couple from our neighborhood. We arrived to find the parking lot packed and couples dressed in evening clothes entering the club. We soon learned they were guests arriving for a wedding reception. Of course. It is still June, after all.
Seeing all that formal attire and the piece de resistance—the bridal gown—sent me flashing back to my near futile search for the perfect gown and a wedding that was nearly sidelined by a soap opera bride.
I hate to shop; I was born without the shop-till-you- drop gene. I only shop when I absolutely must, and once I became engaged, finding a wedding gown was a must.
My own view of fashion complicated the bridal gown hunt. I’m into understated elegance. Nothing too drab or too flashy. Chic but not trendy. Classic but not ancient. No, I’m not the least bit hard to please.
I perused scads of bridal magazines. Nuh-Uh. My mom dragged me from store to store, shop to shop, and boutique to boutique. No joy. A cousin offered me her wedding gown; she said it would bring both of us luck if I wore it. OMG! It took more guts than I had to accept her offer. I would have been thrilled to bring the two of us luck, but not in that gown, and certainly not while I was still living.
“Oh, gee, well, thanks for the offer, Cuz, but I don’t think it’s my color.”
“But it’s white.”
“It’s antique white. I only look good in really white white.”
By that time, my desperate dad offered me money to elope and my mom was on the hair-pulling side of frantic. Fortunately, a friend of hers from work came to our rescue. He had a friend who had a friend who worked for a bridal designer house in Manhattan. The work friend’s friend’s friend [try saying that three times fast] scored a private showing for us. The chances were good that I was about to get an Honest To God Designer Gown—and get it wholesale.
The salon director showed us several designs that left me cold. I was on the verge of losing hope when I saw it. The gown. The perfect gown. The perfectly scrumptious gown. It was love at first sight. I tried it on and it was me, me, me! I would have married anyone so I could walk down the aisle wearing it. My mom was so relieved that I finally found a gown I liked, she almost cried. When she wrote out the check, she actually did cry.
About a week before the wedding, I came down with a very bad case of pre-nuptial jitters. All right, I got cold feet. All my female relatives tried everything they could think of to warm up my tootsies again. They came very close to calming the nervous bride-to-be when I received a very ominous phone call from another cousin who was watching her favorite soap opera.
“Today’s the wedding. You have to tune in.”
“I’m really busy. I don’t have time—“
“I think she’s wearing your gown!”
“What!!!”
I rushed to the TV and turned it on. There it was. My gown. The make-believe soap opera bride was wearing my real-life perfectly scrumptious wedding gown.
I wanted her dead.
My female relatives had their work cut out for them after that because I was ready to call the wedding off. Just about everyone I knew watched that soap. How could I possibly get married in a gown that everyone saw on national television?
Well, those clever gals appealed to my vanity. They said the gown looked much better on me than it did on that soap opera bride. I suppose they already knew how badly I wanted to wear the gown and that I would be willing to believe anything they might say. I did, of course.
I was feeling nostalgic about my wedding this morning so I got out my album to have another look at myself in that perfectly scrumptious wedding gown. Hmmm. Know what? Those clever gals were right. 
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