My Crazy Saturday Part II
Monday, March 26, 2007 at 9:17PM 
Scary dresses!
Bridesmaid Dress Shopping - a labor of love and friendship....
I dashed home after my refreshing swim to shower, shine, and pick up Genevieve for a little dose of bridesmaid dress shopping. I was actually a bit optimistic - the swim wasn't all bad, maybe bridesmaid dresses wouldn't be so bad? Now that's optimism. "Bridal" rears its dirty head again with the prospect of shopping for bridal dresses.
Let's review: if shopping hell has three layers, you would find jeans shopping at the top, swimsuit shopping about two flights below that, and then, a fast steep drop down the musty mine shaft in a rickety, unlit cage of an elevator, and one arrives at the pit of the earth, the lowest level of burning inferno: bridal dresses.
No, I'm not making this up. The experience is universally miserable. Of course there are intrinsic elements that factor into the overall misery, such as sizing, budget constraints, quality, etc., but the whole bruising package is then rolled into the emotional investment endowed in the occasion one is shopping for. Everyone's wedding day is supposed to be "perfect" - more perfect than any day has ever been in the history of the universe - and right at the center of this pursuit of perfection is a white confection made of tulle, embroidery, satin, and lace: the wedding dress. (It's a lot for a little dress to bear, don't you think?) Second in importance to this satorial symbol of everlasting love and happiness, are the dresses the bride's attendants must wear.
Ah, bridesmaids. They're the trouble in taffetta, the cliché of the reception, the butt of every joke, the monochromatic pack of drama fo' yo' momma. How does it happen? These same girls hold down professional careers, good relationships, pay their own bills, and walk through the day with ladylike splendor on any given Tuesday, yet when in "bridesmaid" mode, something seems to take over. And it isn't entirely their fault. Is it really possible to expect that a group of women, numbering anywhere between three and eight, of different shapes, sizes, and colorings could possibly come together and agree on one single dress in the same color? The prospect is humiliating. It's in this moment that the adrenaline boosts, and instead of keeping ladylike decorum, most of us with a free-thinking, headstrong education in our backgrounds will speak up and say something. After all, we selfishly seem to think that in a way it's our wedding too.
But it isn't our wedding, it's someone else's and she's calling the shots. Why would any bride want to inflict this kind of second-tier spotlighting on anyone, let alone their good friends? It could be revenge - after all, just about every bride has been a miserable bridesmaid at one time or another. Now it's their day, their color scheme, their traditions, their pursuit of perfection, and the bridesmaids are just a cog in the wheel. So, in the name of old friendships, we surrender. I've done it twice myself and I'm embarking on my third time this year, and looking forward to the imminent surrender - truly.
Genevieve has asked me and two of her other friends, Vivian and Liz, to be her bridesmaids on the big day. In a stroke of true modernity, she has also asked her friend Ruben to be her "Man of Honor" during the cermony. I've known Vivian and Liz almost as long as I've known Genevieve, and I knew the second we met up with Vivian on Saturday morning that this bridesmaid experience was going to be a fun time.
As the three of us gathered outside of a bridal boutiqe, I came up with an idea: "What's going to be our code word if we don't see anything we like?"
G: "I know - we'll say that we're getting hungry..."
Would you wear this dress?Bridal dress shopping is mostly a bear because of the sizing. The dresses are a universal size eight-ten, and if you don't wear that size, you don't get to try them on to see if they work for you. You just go along with what everyone else chooses and take your chances with the measurements. This is the worse humiliation: bridal sizin charts. They claim it's "international sizing" and this may be true, but it's still horrific. Forget your size at Banana Republic or BCBG - that's all done. Here, you get measured, see where you fall on the chart, and all at once your dress size is the equivalent to your bra size. Last year, my friends Rachel and Ryan were preparing for their wedding, and Rachel encountered the same misery. "I didn't know what to say," Ryan lamented, "she came home in a fit of tears, thinking that she'd never find a wedding dress that fit." It's a truth universally acknowledged: the "international sizing" is a joke.
Another joke is that most bridal salons don't post the pricing of the gowns. They also don't provide price lists. Genevieve was very upset about this. "They get you to put on all these dresses until you fall in love with one, only to find that it's way out of your budget. But you just want the whole thing to be over with and find the dress, so you just give up. It's a scam! It's total emotional manipulation!"
Herein lies everyone's aversion to the bridal shopping experience: no matter where you shop or how posh the place might look, the shopper tends to always feel as though they're being taken. There's just something inehrently underhanded about the exchange, and no one can really put their finger on it. The sales associates are rude, they don't tell you the truth, and they snicker under their breath when they deliver an outsized sample for you to try on and it's still too small. It doesn't make sense really, why doesn't bridal dress shopping fulfill the ultimate fantasy of perfection that every bride wants? If these merchants were smart, you'd think everything would be on the level, and all of the sizing would be three sizes SMALLER than your usual - just so you'd feel heavenly and thin as you approach the big day. You would think that brides and bridesmaids would leave the shop feeling girlie, attractive, and blissful - not feeling fat and reduced to hot tears of humiliation. If one customer should be flattered by definition, it's a bride - AND her bridesmaids by extension.
Bridal studio associate: "So, who will be trying on the gowns?"
Me: "That's all you Viv..."
Viv: "Okay...that's cool."
Bridal studio associate: "Wow, that was easy..."
Me: "Somebody has to be the sample bitch, and it won't be me..."
Pretty soon, we decided we were hungry. On our way to getting food, Genevieve decided we should check out the Jessica McClintock outlet over on Potrero Hill, just to see what they had. We began exchanging stories about our favorite Gunne Saxe dresses from girlhood - back in the day when the brand was synonymous with quality and style for the price. My how things have changed.
G: "Damn, this place is like Bebe on crack...who wears this shit?"
The Jessica McClintock outlet was pastiche of clashing cheap polyester in a barrage of colors, patterns, and ruffles. There is only so much shitty fabric I can take before I want to scratch my entire body, but all three of us were so cowed by the wall-to-wall poly that we began to goof off. As I began to take pictures, an associate came forth and told me that photos weren't allowed.
G: 'Did she mean you couldn't take pictures at all, or that you couldn't take pictures of the ugly-ass dresses? Dude, they need to be specific. "
Me: "I don't know - but there's only so much of this I can take. I need to get out of here. I'm really hungry."
We left Jessica McClintock in a state of giggly shock - laughing our way over to the Slow Club for brunch and a round of their spicy Bloody Marys. Just what we needed to take the edge off before our final stop at Bridal Image on 6th Street. We had all been to Bridal Image before - probably six times between the three of us. It was there that we found two very viable options of bridesmaid dresses. But this is only just the beginning...
Overall, the Saturday antics weren't nearly has doom-filled as I had anticipated - chalk it up to my strong sense of humor...and optimism...
Reader Comments (2)