Dress Approval (or the Hunt, Take IV)

As I described in this post ( http://catholicweddinggirl.blogspot.com/search/label/Wedding%20Dress ), I had finally found a dress that I thought was the one, which left only one obstacle: the dress had to pass Mom’s inspection (insert ominous sound here). As she was in Houston, I obviously didn’t want to make her come all the way to Austin to see me try on the dress, so it had to wait until I got to Houston. Luckily, my fiancé and I went in to town a week later, so I was able to show my sisters and mom what my dress looked like.

We went back to the store we had first visited, but while I was still in Austin I called to make sure that the store did carry the dress that I wanted. I wasn’t especially looking forward to hunting through the racks for a style of dress (there were probably over a hundred on each row of racking). Luckily, when we got to the store, we had a salesperson assigned to us (I think we were lucky because we went early, and this is a store that won’t take appointments, so the store wasn’t busy yet). This saleswoman was probably someone’s daughter; she looked about 19 or 20, but the woman behind the desk proclaimed her an expert.

The salesperson had an idea of where the dress was located, but apparently, no idea what it looked like. I described it to her, but ultimately I was the one that found it. I went to the dressing room, where my sister helped me put the dress on, while I mistakenly left my mother outside with the store’s “expert.” When I came out to show her the dress, I got an expected response (from my mother): “That’s nothing like the other dresses you tried on.” I kept the groaning in my head and replied, “Well, I know, but I really like this dress.”

Then she said that she thought the train was too long, to which the “expert” saleswoman replied that the train came in three different lengths: royal, cathedral, and chapel. It did not. I had been to the website, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t see a purpose in telling the woman that she was wrong, after all, we weren’t going to purchase the dress at that store (the three lengths was actually referencing the three different “hem-to-hollow” lengths).

My mother then decided that I had no idea how they would decide which size to order, and then explained it to me, even though I had just ordered a bridesmaid’s dress with the same process (for those of you not familiar with the process, they take your measurements, then order the largest size that accommodates your measurements. My mom, for some reason (J), became upset when I cut her off and finished her explanation for her. I understand to a certain degree, when my younger sister got married, she was quite a bit younger, and didn’t know what she was looking at most of the time, or what questions to ask.