So, we set off and I was driving. I hated driving; sometimes I wished I had never passed my test. I had found the shop online and I liked the look of a couple of dresses and they were reasonably priced too. Your reasonable and my reasonable may be somewhat different, so I was thinking a thousand pounds and below, but being honest, I was hoping I wouldn’t spend nearly that much. I seemed to have every programme that had wedding or bride in the title series linked just for ideas, I had seen a lot of women on TV trying on wedding dresses and getting very emotional, knowing that this dress was the one, so I had high expectations. I wanted tears, not only from my eyes, but from my mum’s and sister’s.
We arrived half an hour late for the appointment as I could not find this bloody shop. I had driven around in circles and could not see it. In the end I got my mum to phone them for directions. Modern day technology was on too, sat nav on my phone, and still, I couldn’t find it. When we finally found it, it was in the middle of this quaint little village and it wasn’t a shop at all, it was a house. Yes, you heard correct, a house. I did think for a second that the website must have been fake; I had images in my head that made day turn into night. Suddenly rain came out of nowhere, so we ran for the door, it opened and as we peered round and said hello, we were grabbed by an evil killer who would make us meet our bitter end. I could see the news headlines, “Brides to be nowhere to be seen”, as this killer had a thing for the newly engaged.
I had quite an imagination, as you can probably tell. Anyway, going back to it, I pulled onto the drive and could have cried, I was so stressed. I was stressed enough before but now I was on another level. I know I wanted tears but not due to stress and anxiety.
A lady answered the door. I hated being late—it was one of my pet hates—so firstly I apologised. I was all sweaty too. It was April and quite a warm day, but I was not sweating from the heat. It was stress sweat. I remember thinking the shop must be round the back or something but sadly I was wrong. It was a room out the back of the garage with three very long rails of wedding dresses and a very small two-seater sofa in the corner. There did not seem to be a changing room; this was awkward. Okay, so my mum and sister had obviously seen me naked at some point but let’s just say I wasn’t looking my best and not the most body confident. But maybe there was a separate room for changing, that’s what I hoped. But no, there wasn’t, of course there wasn’t, so the lady asked me to pick a few dresses off the racks and then she would come back in ten minutes and I could try them.
I hoped she wasn’t going to help me get changed as I didn’t want a stranger to see me naked. I did not like anyone seeing me naked, even Edward, due to the hang ups I had about my body and the thought of someone staring at me took me back to Malcolm’s house when he would watch me. The rails were quite high, so the dresses were not dragging on the floor, and I had not been blessed with height being five foot; nor had my mum who was even smaller. My sister had a couple of inches on us, but we still struggled to even get the dresses off.
I did not have a clue where to start. Three walls of dresses all crammed in together and not in any kind of order or size. I picked out three, all different: one lace, one strapless and one with a lot of bling and beaded, all beautiful in their own kind of way. The lady came back in and basically asked me to strip off there and then. I took my clothes off, leaving myself in my strapless bra and knickers, so I stood there in the cold practically naked in front of the woman, my mum and sister, while I had to step into the first dress. There was a mirror, thank god, so I could see what I looked like, but there was no grand entrance moment like I had always imagined, coming out from the changing room and everyone going wow. I was there, about two feet away from everyone. There was no amazing moment and the dress was awful. I didn’t know if it was my face that made it look awful, but it was like some granny dress. Apologies grannies, no offence intended. I would usually love a granny dress, but not on my wedding day. Maybe it was because the dress was lace and not fitted, but honestly, I have never felt uglier and I could see my mum’s and sister’s faces not smiling, like trying to be polite, saying they liked the back.
I couldn’t even bear to look at myself in the mirror I felt that disgusting. I felt like I was in fancy dress or trying on my mum’s clothes when I was little.
The back looked nice, just what I wanted to hear. I have an extremely dodgy tattoo on my back, so awful that you can’t even tell what it is. Most people ask me what country I have tattooed on my back but it’s actually a dragon, but I had found myself saying Ireland more often than not, as it was easier. I was
