The Dress!!

So, I know I said I would update you on this, and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get to it!

You all know about my dress hunting...my goal was to find not just any dress, but THE DRESS. You know, the one that makes everyone cry when they see you in it, the dress that makes you just KNOW it's the right one for you. Its the dress you hear about every time anyone is getting married on television and its the Hollywood vision that exists in every movie and book you might think of picking up. THAT dress is the one I was going for. (I know, I know. High standards, who could ever expect to find that in real life, and all that. But I didn't want to settle!)

After my multiple trips and Saturdays spent looking I was running out of options. I only had two stores left in the near area that I could try, hoping to find the right one. I was beginning to despair and think I would have to settle for a pretty dress, but not MY dress. And to tell you the truth, when I went shopping last Saturday, I really was not expecting to find it.

I tried on several dresses that day. One was too beaded, another too plain. One was pretty, but it didn't evoke tears of certainty or that feeling. It was not my dress.

Then one of the attendants in the store brought me a dress she thought I would like. It had been in another bride's dressing room, so my combing the racks would never have found it.

Mom helped me into it, and we headed for the big mirror.

It was beautiful. Breathtaking. It was everything I ever wanted, a combination of all the characteristics I loved in the many dresses that came before. I tried on a veil, just to see how it would look, if I would feel like a bride. And I did. A chill ran down my spine. I walked away and walked back to the mirror to see how it moved. Tears welled up in my mother's eyes. That's what made me certain. My mother cried. It was the cue I had been waiting for (unbeknownst to her), and I felt like a bride--not just a girl in a white dress.

It is the perfect dress. The dress in which I will marry my one and only. I absolutely love it. And I cannot wait!