Dressed to excess

These things always start small.

“There is,” I told myself sagely, six months ago, “absolutely no reason in the world to spend more than £100 on a dress.” I paused, to fully savour the wisdom of my internal monologue. “After all,” I reflected, “Monsoon sell beautiful dresses. And in the sale, many of said beautiful dresses are marked down to £75 or less.” More wise nodding here. “There is certainly no real reason on God’s earth to spend more money than I have ever spent on anything before on a huge, pouffy, flouncy, crystal-encrusted, swingy, white, lacy, corseted, puff-sleeved, hand-beaded, silken-embroidered, 30-ft train bearing, boned, hoop-skirted, embellished, satin-and-silk mix meringue of a wedding dress. I mean, what would be the point?”

But these things, as I said, always start small. For years, for example, I have been saying that I wouldn’t want to get married in a white dress. See above. But mainly because, if I’m going to spend money on a nice dress (not just a £20 from C &A dress, or a £5 from New Look dress) then I damn well want a really nice one I can wear again! I don’t want to wear it once and put it in a drawer and never wear it again.

People are always surprised. It astonishes me that the wedding industry is sufficiently well developed so that I can release doves at the end of the service, can travel to the ceremony in a tank if I really want to, can have a civil service in a hotel, can have a huge glistening tower of profiteroles instead of fruit cake if that’s what really floats my boat…. but if I tell anyone I don’t want to wear white, they look at me as though I’ve suggested impaling my mother’s head on the railings outside as part of the festivities.

“Not wear white? But it’s traditional!”
I could of course answer at this point, “Yes, so is domestic violence.” But I don’t. I smile. Because I have always said, “Definitely nothing strapless – how obscene!” “Definitely no veil.” “And definitely not a white dress.”

So my mother and I went to the national wedding fair. This was a totally surreal experience. Completely bizarre, but quite good fun. And I tried on a wedding coat… a kind of long jacket with long sleeves and an embroidered train.

This is where the trouble starts.

After putting this thing on over my jeans and trainers and t-shirt, and swishing through to a long mirror where I could stare unashamedly at my reflection while other people stared at me (this, I believe, is how you know you’re a bride- when enough people are staring at you) something changed.

Something else changed after I went out with my schoolfriend and soon-to-be-bridesmaid, and we tried on dresses in various places. I began to say things like, “Well…. perhaps just a small train” and “of course, wearing a tiara is very important” and “of course, there’s always the gloves question” and then the inevitable: “I suppose I could always wear a kind of rich gold colour… a sort of camel-ish kind of colour with a bronze sheen…. a kind of oyster-shine kind of colour… a sort of golden cream kind of shade… a kind of ivory – porcelain-ey kind of… well, I suppose sort of more a pale off-white….”

This has been quickly followed by things like, “Well, although I don’t want to wear a veil, I’m just going to – y’know – just try one on just to see how it looks. Because you never know.”

The problem is that my rational self knows that spending more than £100 on a dress is outrageous frippery. But while my rational self was saving money for a rainy day, my irrational self slipped out and tried on a dress that was bright white, and strapless(…and somehow didn’t look obscene at all, especially with a hideously overpriced wrap…) and made of silk, and sequinned, and cost £300. And while my rational self was opening an ISA, my irrational self was realising that £300 suddenly looked like the most astonishing bargain, the like of which has never been seen in the western world. And even while my rational self was laughing herself stupid over how much I looked like a kind of bad, anti-feminist throwback kind of sick Cinderella, my irrational self and my bridesmaid were too busy cooing at my reflection like a pair of turtle doves.

Next month I’m going to spend a few hours in a bridal shop with my mother and sister, and by the end of it I wouldn’t be surprised if hoop skirts and 30 ft trains were starting to look like the sorts of things it would be almost rude not to have.

So… where am I now? – Probably not a white dress. But I’m not ruling it out.

I find myself on a slow decline, and I’m scared to know where the bottom might be. Because no one is going to tell you that you look a fright on your wedding day. No one is going to sidle up and let you know that you look like a four year old who has been allowed to go on a glitter spree in my little pony princess land. No one will tell you that you’ve made a mistake – the dress was over-priced, you’re bulging at the back, you’ve dropped champagne over the front, the sparkliness is blinding people, the puffiness is swooshing in everyone’s way, the laciness keeps getting caught in people’s cufflinks, and the rustliness is drowning out the speeches.

But then, perhaps that’s all well and good. The weddings I’ve been to, the momentary distraction of what the bride is wearing has always been beaten in my memory by other, less embroidered, more important things: happy faces, happy people, smiling friends and a desperately happy couple. I think that perhaps in spite of the huge industry, the dedicated internet chat rooms, the endless discussions, the veil or no veil debate….perhaps it’s the kind of day where what you wear actually isn’t important at all.

With apologies if at any point between now and August 14th 2004, I become a wedding bore…
and with love
therumtumtugger
xxx(whose Opendiary writer’s block appears to have ended)