wedding dress saga II, it just got personal....

i just got married! and now i'm doing a wedding series, this is part two of the wedding dress saga, you can see part one here. i know, i know, i should have done these as they were happening, right? yeah, as you might be able to tell, i was fucking busy! and my fucking laptop died! and gah, just get off my back, you guys! in related news... anyone wanna send me a new laptop for a wedding gifty? do you want to be my favorite ever? dooooo you????



the wedding fabric, duh

once we had nixxed curly and the asian, (sounds like a racist 50s cartoon, eh? wait, is the 50s when people were racist against everybody? that's right, right?) we had to find a new seamstress. i started making inquiries half heartedly, with my broken fashion spirit. in typical, becky style, i just kinda ignored everything until someone said they might know someone who knew someone who made christmas dresses for her daughters. meh, i'll try it. the emailing commenced and she said she would do it and that we should meet to get fabric. chuck assured me that if his cousin had recommended her and if she was a mormon, we would be in good hands.

we met at a halfway point in between the huge fabric stores and our houses. the seamstress, shirley, came with her sister, janelle in a large SUV, thirty minutes late. shirley said, "i'll drive!" and we all piled in. i'm used to people being late because it's a trait that runs in my family, so i wasn't too worried about the time. my mother, on the other hand did mention it and i reminded her that she had no room to talk. in fact, i will also point out that when i called her, 15 minutes after we were supposed to meet, she answered the phone, "what's up?" what. is. up. and i answered, "you're fucking late, that's what's up!! what's up? WHAT'S UP?? what's up, indeed." i mean, really. she does have a point in that we were the customers in this situation, so it'd probably be more acceptable for us to be late than the seamstress but still, i would have simply hated waiting by myself with a chick i didn't know for 15 minutes. yuck.

on the road to the fabric store, we found out that shirley is what's usually termed, an "aggressive driver," but what we later converted to, "inattentive," "reckless" and "thank god we're still alive, becky!" kinda driver. she was chatting with her sister in rapid fire sister talk, then she'd turn around and ask a question, then she'd change the song on the radio with her iphone then she'd show us pictures of the dresses she'd made for her daughters, then she'd tell us several stories about her daughters, then she'd say something weird to her sister, then she'd swerve out of a lane and slam on her brakes and then accelerate up to 70 mph.


i also have to tell you, while fully admitting that i'm not the cleanest person alive, that shirley's car is the dirtiest car i have ever, ever ridden in, in my life. it wasn't, cluttered, it was filty, every surface of the car was covered in stains but the car was completely empty otherwise. it was like she had an ice cream party in the back with 20 six year olds. or maybe a crack party with seven crack whores. or perhaps a flock of 42 seagulls had been locked in her car overnight and she just never bothered to clean up after them. ooooo! maybe it was a cock fight. who knows? not me, that's for sure. i can only make wild speculations for your amusement. we did end up making it to the fabric store alive and with only minor damages to my psyche. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BACK OF THAT CAR??? sometimes i still have nightmares.

we tootled around the fabric store looking at fabrics and then looking at fabrics in the natural light next to the window by the multicolored spandex. of course, i had to fall in love with the one satin cutout lace that only had 1 and 1/2 yards left. ugh, not enough for the pattern. shirley says to ask if they can order more. she seems unconcerned that we'll have to wait and i trust her to know the amount of time she needs to complete the dress, so we left the store empty handed.

over the next few weeks, shirley was busy or she "had her girls" or she was unreachable. as the wedding drew nearer, my mother became more nervous and i became more hidey about the dress. i finally sent shirley a heartfelt email asking if she could please reassure me that everything would be done in time for me to actually have the dress at the wedding. this was on february 17th. 37 days before my wedding. we still had no fabric. no fabric with which to make a wedding dress. so far, all we had was a dream and a pattern (that i wanted to make changes to).

on the 26th of february, we went down to the fabric store yet again and everything seemed to fall into place. my mother drove this time, when we arrived, the perfect fabrics were waiting for us. no compromises, no rushed choices, everything was simple and easy. we breezed in and out and i felt a renewed sense of ease. aaaah, it would be alright. on the way home, shirley told us that she would do a mock-up in muslin and probably call me the next day to do the initial fitting, that way we could get started cutting out the real fabric. she did not call the next day. she did not call until the next thursday to set up an appointment for friday and that was only because i had texted her a few times.

friday, march 10th, 2011, the MOCK bodice, made of muslin is now finished, i am to try it on that night. this is 16 days before the wedding. on friday, she tells me that we'll have to push it off until saturday. i arrive on saturday and we try on the bodice and make some adjustments, she then tells me she'll re-cut out the pattern to make it longer for my height and my boobs (they always mess everything up). i went on some errands around her house and come back to try on the mock bodice again. everything seems to fit well, she says she'll start working with the real fabric and call me tomorrow. can you even guess what happens???

...the next weekend i am sort of beginning to kinda maybe freak out. one week and a day before the wedding. one. week. i'm beginning to think this was the stupidest idea i've ever had but for some reason, i make no back-up plans, i make no mad scrambles for something different. for some reason, i still know that the dress will be done. i think it's my background as a professional procrastinator, i can recognize a procrastinator when i see one and i know, we procrastinators might scare everyone but we get the job done.