Day Two Dress hunting

     With my head full of mermaids and images of dresses from the first day, I headed back out for more shopping. I was not expecting a magical moment, a la "Say Yes to the Dress" but I was expecting beautiful dresses and lots of laughter. That is exactly what I got.

     We started at a bridal warehouse with a great sale rack and dresses we could buy off the rack.  
    I grabbed dresses that I might
not of thought of and tried them on. Beautiful dresses...some weighing up
to 40 pounds. So looked silly...really silly

Some looked amazing, really, but

did not seem like dresses that would

travel to beaches or sailboats....

or even Disneyland.   

Some weighed 40 pounds and felt like blankets. Maybe a bit piratical...

but still too heavy.

One was lovey...but too big and too difficult to tailor. but WOW lovely. Actually the top could be tailored, but the train would be a disaster.

Oh, and it was really heavy. If we had been having a one shot wedding, this would have been it. But I realized that all of these were beautiful dresses, and most of them looked lovely on me. I did not need to find the most beautiful dress, I had to have a wonderful experience. And find a dress that would journey well.

So back to the first store and more lovely dresses. Amazing mermaids. Lots of them. But very few meant for a wild journey. Very few seemed

to have the spirit of adventure

that I was looking for.

Every dress I tried on had fans. People walked by and cheered the dress and me. They had heard about the traveling wedding dress and wanted to vote and participate. They wanted dresses that would travel and weddings that would go on and on.

At some point in the fun of people telling me how lovely I looked in each dress, that this was less about the dress and more about me.  I realized that I was looking for

a piece of myself that has been in

hiding for years. A wild mermaid

piece. An adventurer piece. A way of thinking and being in the world that is creative and wild and dynamic and unpredictable. But

living large does not require a large dress. It required a dress that would travel and change and adapt.

     So with the help of Anastasia, I went back to a mermaid dress that wrapped me and promised to change and travel and help me find myself. It promised not to steal the show, but to help me define the show. It promised to let me shine as whoever I want to be.

So the mermaid that Anastasia picked out for me has come home with me. It needs a bit of tailoring, but not much. We seem made for each other.

On to the Ketubah and the wedding date.