I'm sure this is normal

This absolutely terrorized me for almost a week:

Why, you ask? Is my mail carrier mean? Did I have an early childhood incident with a slightly mangled box? Did the return address label say Kaczynski? No -- it was far worse than that. This box contained my wedding dress.

I wasn't expecting to feel this way about it, mind you. Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps I should've reflected for a moment on how quickly I ran out of the one wedding dress shop I've managed to walk into, and factored that in. As it was, I left the box sitting there on the chair for several days. I kept "meaning" to try it on. But what if I hated it? I considered grabbing my next door neighbor, Theresa, and making her hold my hand while I tried it on. (Metaphorically, of course -- that would be logistically difficult, if taken literally.) But I decided not to "bother" her, and left it sitting there for another day. (I say "bother" in quotes because she's terribly excited about the whole wedding thing, and has said she's more than willing to help.)

And then, one night, in the middle of a tv show that I wasn't paying much attention to, I just got up, opened the box and the protective envelope inside of it, and tried it on. Right over my wildly wrong-colored underwear. I remembered to put my shoes on, too.

And I didn't hate it. It was a little wrinkled from its trip, but in perfect condition & exactly as advertised. I think I made the right call on the size, too -- it fit in the boobs, but needed to be taken in down the sides. Which I figured was better than the alternative of fitting in the waist with boobage spilling out the top.

Now, of course, I found myself in the position of having a wedding dress without an accompanying wedding dress shop to do the alterations. D'oh! I looked on The Knot and Wedding Channel.com, but all of their recommendations for "L.A. alterations" seem to be in Orange County. Not out of the question, but not exactly convenient either. (Plus, it's scary behind the Orange Curtain, and I try not to go there.) On a whim, I looked on Yelp -- which took a damned long time to load for some reason, but then yielded up gold. Two tailor shops just outside of Beverly Hills with specific reviews for altering wedding dresses. I ultimately went with the place that had six reviews that were all raves, with three of them specifically mentioning that she saved them from wedding dress disasters created by other people.

Of course, getting the dress altered meant that I had to try it on again. In front of other people this time. And while I was standing there, moving my arms out of the way so the very nice people with pins could do their thing ... I literally got dizzy. The room didn't quite spin, but I was definitely light-headed, and possibly green around the gills. "Holy crap this is my wedding dress ohmigod I want it to look perfect I'm freakin' marrying J__ in this dress ohmigod do i hate it is it ridiculously drab what if i wanna change it can i change it of course i can change it i don't wanna change it it's fine ..."

Ahem. I'm a little bit embarrassed by that outburst. I think I just had my first "bride" moment.

Also, it's about an inch or two short. Which I don't think the tailor can fix, but I bet a petticoat will. (And thank you, sis, for pointing out that the correct term is not, in fact, "poufy slip.") And if it doesn't, and the thing people remember most about my wedding a year after it happens is that my dress could've been an inch longer, then we will have done something wrong.