just another manic monday

Most days I either take the train into New York City or I stay over with a friend and take the bus or the subway. Yesterday, though, I drove! Why would anyone drive into NYC? From Connecticut? When they are prone to getting lost (no thanks to you, non-updated iphone map) and in subsequent fights on the phone with their fiance about directions (sorry, P)?

To transport a wedding dress.

Well, you may be wondering what I was bringing my wedding dress into NYC for anyway. I just find that my work at the UN gets accomplished faster if I feel like a fairy princess, so I have taken to wearing it to work. No no, actually I needed to take it to the wedding dress doctor, because when I went home for this wedding, I found a MYSTERIOUS STAIN on my wedding dress! What was it? Who knows?!? It's been safe in a closet since I last saw it in March. Alarming! We have had a few wedding disasters so far -- late invitations, underbooked hotel blocks, a missing bridesmaid dress -- but I don't really care about that stuff. I mean, it would be nice if our guests had a place to sleep, knew what day the wedding would be on, and didn't see a naked bridesmaid walking down the aisle, but really...it will work out. This, though, I was a little worried about.

I mean, a girl's wedding dress is serious business.

I'm an immediate problem-solver (which usually means the solutions I come up with are...not so thorough. Like, my first idea for the invitation mix-up was the correct the dates by hand with a little pink sharpee...) so even over the weekend I started trying to prep. myself for the possiblity that I would have to buy a new dress (after borrowing a million dollars from my parents) or that we would have to dye the whole thing pink to cover it up (could be a new trend). Really though, this is my DREAM dress, so I was hoping it would work out!

So.

I drove into the city with my wedding dress in the backseat. I left at 5:30 AM so that I could get to the UN by 8 (I was late because I got so majorly lost) so that I could leave by 4 (I did that anyway, oops!) to make it to a 4:30 appointment at Madame Paulette's.

I snapped a photo photo before my fitting!

Not only did they totally set my mind at ease about the spot -- saying, and I quote, "Oh, we can get that right out. I wouldn't worry about that at all. -- but they are tailoring the dress so that it fits me perfectly. I feel so lucky. I would never, ever have taken it to a place like this to get it tailored. It doesn't fit quite as well as it did at Christmas, so I knew I had to take it somewhere, but I probably would have ended up at a cleaner's in New Haven, and it would have been totally fine, but because it had to be cleaned (and that seemed worth finding the best of the best) I am getting really professional & perfect tailoring, too.

Ahh!

I think they were charmed by my total lack of awareness about this wedding world. I was five minutes late (still!) and timidly asked if they still had time to see me (laughter). In the fitting room when she offered to take in the back and rework the lace I asked if they could really do that (laughter). When they saw that I was keeping the dress in two garment bags that I had cut in half and safety pinned together they told me I could keep those, that they would give me a box (laughter, not in a mean way, but kind of the way Professor Higgins reacts to Eliza Doolittle at first). I felt so taken care of and just like a...bride! This sort of replaced the dress-shopping experience, since I had skipped that by buying my dress secondhand. Also, since we are trying to do so much of the wedding on the cheap, I hadn't really experienced the splurgy doting wedding attendant lemon water zebra couch treatment. Ha!

I am a princess.

And my dress will be white on August 13, after all.
:-)