Speaking of Measuring Up...

Disclaimer: If for some reason Sam or some other guy might be reading this post, I will encourage you to click elsewhere today. This post is about wedding gowns and bras, quite frankly. The latter being a subject that is probably a mystery to men everywhere. So if you are of the male species, I urge you to find a blog about football, grilling, or weaponry today. This one's for the girls!

I left the girls with T yesterday and went out of town with my sister to look at wedding gowns. T looked slightly panicked when I walked out the door--Natalie was begging for Cinderella and Michaela Byrd has a gunky nose, and was apparently none too pleased to be without "The Precious" (me) for a day.

The first place we went was a cute little salon in an upscale shopping center, about an hour from my house. My mom met us there after several phone calls to ascertain our whereabouts (we got lost and drove through Richmond, with my sister frantically pulling into a ghetto parking lot and dialing Sam for directions). We have decided that we hate Mapquest.

While my sister tried on some gorgeous designer gowns, I found myself in the unfortunate position of sitting on a large couch in front of the three-way mirror. No escaping it. A fat chick's nightmare. I decided that if I left my new scarf on, it could possibly draw my eyes away from my bad hair (ponytail) and unfortunate hugeness.

Alison and I have very different tastes. She chose simple strapless gowns with short trains. I found myself inexplicably drawn towards anything with the slightest bit of bling. Funny, the gowns I would have chosen for myself were much different than the gown I chose seven and a half years ago. Of course, in my little imaginary game, I was still a size 6.

It wasn't difficult to discern which dresses my sister liked, and which ones she hated."Um. No." I'd hear from the dressing room, and I knew she wasn't even coming out. My mom did a fabulous job of not annoying her, a feat not easily attained, as Alison is more easily annoyed than a wolverine on a power trip.

I won't give a description or post a picture of the "winner," just in case Sam decides to read this. I'm sure for the other gowns, it was an honor just to be nominated, but you could tell which dress was "the one" when she walked out of the dressing room. A pity that most of those dresses have price tags that would compare with building a deck onto our home and adding a patio set and gas grill, but you try arguing that point with a bride-to-be.

After lunch, I decided to duck into a pretty little lingerie shop. I will admit that the underwire on my favorite bra broke last week, and whether it was due to wear and tear or weight gain (I am guessing the latter), I really can't say. I wasn't even sure what size I needed, so I headed in and asked for a fitting.

Nothing spells h-u-m-i-l-i-a-t-i-o-n like being fitted for a bra when you are the most overweight you have ever been and the salesgirl is so thin you can almost see through her tiny little Gap-clad body. The real irony is that my very first job as a tiny, Gap-clad college student was as a salesgirl in the lingerie department at Macy's.

The girl ended up being very friendly and helpful. I tried on seven or eight different bras, not because I was so excited about the variety of styles and colors (they were beautiful), but because the first one had a price tag of $109.00. For a girl who lately purchases yoga pants at Target, $109.00 was a bit steep. I ended up finding the perfect bra at the perfect price. My mom ended up treating me to a very pretty, cream colored creation for $47.00.

And I won't even tell you what cup size it was! I was pleasantly surprised that the band width that I was wearing was several sizes too big, but the cup might as well have been an LMNOP....

Cost of bra: $47.00.
Cost of torture to try on bra in front of young, fit salesgirl in order to find a new favorite: Priceless