So You're EnGAYged, a LGBT wedding blog

I’m writing this blog post from work, and I’m… well, I’m wearing my wedding dress.  Yep, I’m sitting in a folding chair in my quiet office, typing at my trusty Dell laptop with a pleasantly-tailored heap of diamond-white taffeta and delicate beading surrounding me, rather surprised that the sheer amount of fabric isn’t dulling the sound of my keystrokes.  I almost want someone to take a picture of me here so I can send it out to the company and say “tell me I’m not devoted to my job!”  You are completely within your rights if you’re thinking “WTF?”

I work at a small regional office of a national nonprofit, and the staff here is pretty close, so when they heard that my dress would be arriving at the office today, everyone got excited and insisted that I try on the dress when it came.  I didn’t need anyone to twist my arm, and when the package arrived an hour or so ago, I eagerly scurried into another room and dove into the tunnel of tulle. Our motherly office manager laced up the corset back, and everyone nearby gathered around to see.  I’m pleased to report that they all thought it was gorgeous, and I do too.  It’s classic and demure and elegant, but it’s got just enough whoa!-factor.

After everyone had commented, I was about to ask to be unlaced, but then I realized that three of my coworkers were at a meeting, and they would be really sad to have missed out on seeing me in the dress…  and it takes a pretty long time to unlace the dress, much less to lace me back into it again… so I had someone bring my laptop to me and sat down, in my dress, to do some work until they get back.  Hence, there’s a bride in the office.  While I’ve waited and worked, the non-traditional setting gave me the opportunity to do some thinking about dresses and weddings and the whole shebang in a non-traditional way.  Here’s some of the thoughts I’ve had:

1. Brides can’t be ninjas, at least not if their dresses are at all like mine.  Movements as small as an eighth of an inch in any direction cause the dress to say, quite loudly and distinctly, RUSTLE.  Not the attire best suited for sneakiness.
2. It would be really helpful if everyone had the opportunity to do this—spend a few hours just sitting in their dress/suit/whatever, just to get a sense of how it feels to spend most of your day in it.  For example, I now know that when wearing the dress for extended periods, I can breathe comfortably (something I’d been worrying about a little bit) but the beading on the top of the dress is a little irritating when it touches the inside of my upper arms.   I’ll need to bring some aloe vera or something with me on the day of the wedding.  Good thing to know!  Also, even though my shoulders are bare and the office is kind of chilly, I still feel warm enough.  Of course, October weather in Pittsburgh is notoriously hard to predict, so it’s still possible I’ll need a shawl of some kind, but I won’t be freezing in 55 or 60 degree weather.
3. A chapel-length train is really, really long.  When I tried the dress on in the store, I was in a much more restricted space with a lot of people in it, and the atmosphere was excited and intense… all of which distracted me from the fact that I have about four feet of fabric following me around wherever I go.  At the store, I thought I would probably just leave the dress as-is, but now there’s no question that I’ll need the seamstress to take off some of that tomfoolery back there.
4. It really is just a dress, one article of clothing out of thousands you’ll wear over the course of your life.  Society teaches us to attach a huge amount of emotion to it, but in the end it’s some fabric and thread, a blank canvas upon which you can project whatever you want.
5. With that said, I adore the dress, and as I was being laced into it, I started to realize how much time and attention goes into preparing someone on their wedding day.  I was overwhelmed by the thought of having everyone I care most deeply about with me on October 16.   Their support of me and Stacy truly means more than I can say, and even if I knock an entire glass of red wine down my front, fall down on the dance floor, and we’re toasted by someone who is themselves so toasted they’re burnt, I know it’ll still be one of the best days of my life.

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