“I like sleeves, too, or if not sleeves, some kind of… something. I’m not a big fan of strapless.”
“Got it. And what’s your budget?”
“Her fiancé is loaded,” Mom butts in. “There’s no budget.”
“There isn’t, but I would prefer not to go over $5,000,” I tell her.
“Perfect. So, tell me a little bit about your wedding. When is it? Do you have a venue already? Do you have a theme? Color scheme?”
“I’m getting married in Italy. I don’t want the dress to be too heavy, because while the ceremony will take place inside a church, the reception will be outdoors at a beautiful Tuscan estate, so it’ll be pretty warm.”
She nods. “Got it.”
“For my color scheme, I’m doing pink and champagne. My flower girl is wearing a champagne dress with a little pink sash. My maid of honor,” I say, gesturing to my mom, “will be wearing a champagne-colored gown as well, and my bridesmaid’s dress is this sexy, pinkish champagne silk. We actually found her dress before mine,” I say with a smile.
“That sounds so pretty,” she enthuses.
I nod my agreement. “She’s a beautiful human, she would look pretty in a burlap sack, but yeah, the dress is great. Given the color scheme, I don’t want a blinding white wedding gown. Maybe ivory, but I’m open to blush tones, too. I’m pretty flexible. I just want to look really, really pretty. My groom is so handsome it’s stupid, so I want to be beautiful for him on our wedding day.”
“Oh, no,” she says, waving me off. “What are you talking about? You’re adorable.”
I wasn’t fishing for compliments or reassurances. I understand that it may have come off that way, so to more clearly illustrate my point, I pull up a picture of Hunter on my phone and show him to her.
Her eyes widen. “Oh, my.”
I nod knowingly and lower my phone. “Now, imagine that in a tux. So, we need to really nail my wedding look.”
She shakes her head, still mildly off her game over the sight of Hunter.
I’m accustomed to the looks he gets from other women. As possessive as I am, I don’t love the looks, but I do completely understand them.
After a moment, she recovers her wits and asks me a few more questions about my taste in wedding dresses, then she leads me back to the dressing room while Mom and Carlo wait for me in the other room.
When the consultant comes back, I’ve changed into the satin robe she left me with. She’s carrying three gowns in plastic casing. I brighten immediately at the sight of the one I fell in love with online.
“Now, a lot of times with my brides, the first dress isn’t the most popular, so instead of putting you right into your top pick, I was thinking we could try out a different silhouette. You have a nice figure, and you want to look a little sexy for your fiancé, so I was thinking we could try a mermaid.”
I watch as she takes the gown out of its bag. “Works for me.”
She flashes me a smile. Moments later, she’s helping me into the dress. As she pulls the fabric up over my hips, she meets my gaze in the mirror. “So, tell me more about this fiancé. Does he have a single brother?” she jokes.
I smile. “Only sisters.”
“Too bad,” she says lightly. “How did you guys meet?”
I shift as she pulls the dress around me and starts to clamp it closed down the back. “We actually met in middle school. We went to school together our whole lives, but he didn’t notice me until then.”
She regards me in the mirror with a pleasant smile. “You blossomed?”
“Not exactly,” I murmur, thinking about that first day I truly noticed Hunter. “Anyway, we got close. He gave me my first kiss.”
“Aw.”
I smile and nod, but my smile doesn’t last long. “Then he had to move away for a while. He came back for our senior year of high school, though.”
“And you reconnected?”
My lips tug up at the tidy summation of our messy history. “Something like that.”
“High school sweethearts,” she says, shaking her head. “I love that.”
I smile a little more easily at that. “Yeah, we were.”
“Well, you are one lucky woman,” she tells me.
“I am well aware.”
Her gaze flickers to my ring, but she doesn’t remark upon it, just smiles and finishes up with the dress.
I gaze down at the ring I was too excited to even look at when Hunter first proposed. It’s stunning, a classic Harry Winston with an emerald cut diamond that’s a little bigger than I would’ve picked out for myself.
It’s perfect, though. A little too much, just like the man I’m marrying.
“What do you think?”
I look up in the mirror, somehow caught off guard at the sight of myself in a wedding gown. I knew that’s what I would see, of course, but… wow.
This dress is tight but extremely flattering. It’s strapless, which I said I didn’t want, but I like the way the bottom flares out like a mermaid tail.
“It’s really pretty,” I tell her.
“Yeah? You wanna show Mom?”
I flash her a smile and nod. I don’t think it’s the one, but I do think Mom will enjoy seeing me in it. On the way here, she was complaining about me already knowing what I want because she wanted a fashion show.
I pick up the bottom and make my way out onto the shop floor. Mom’s face is turned away at first, but then her gaze hits me and her eyes get big.
“Wow.”
I grin. “Yeah? It’s pretty,” I say, climbing up on the raised platform in front of the mirror.
“It’s gorgeous. Oh my God, my baby is a bride,” she says, already starting to get emotional.
“Oh no, this is only the first dress.”
“I know.” She dabs at her eyes. “I’ll try to keep it together.” Looking at the consultant, she assures her, “I’m not normally an emotional basketcase, it’s this pregnancy. I’m a very tearful pregnant woman. The other day I saw this commercial…”
“Don’t think about the commercial,” I tell her, since I remember the sobfest that ensued.
“Pregnancy is terrible,” she concludes, shaking her head and reaching into her purse for her pack of tissues.
I shake my head, looking in the mirror. “This is why I wanted Zoey to come with us. Maybe I do need someone less biased to give me feedback.” I turn around so Mom can see the front of the dress. “Can you take a picture to send her?”
Mom nods and digs out my cell phone. “You just look so pretty,” she says, sounding like she’s on the verge of tears again.
I wish I could walk over and give her a hug, but I don’t want her to cry on the dress.
Pregnant Mom is adorable.
She sends Zoey the picture and I turn around to look in the mirror again. The consultant and I discuss the things I like and don’t like about it, then Mom tells me Zoey texted back.
“Chloe says ‘that is definitely the one’ and Zoey says that while she thinks it’s gorgeous, she still wants to see the one you sent her from the website.”
I smile. I know Zoey said she and Chloe were binge-watching episodes of Say Yes to the Dress in preparation for today, so I’m not surprised Chloe was so easily won over.