As I type this, it’s been four weeks and five days since I first developed an eyelid twitch. After misdiagnosing myself with Bell’s palsy and then a stroke, my friend’s husband, an actual optometrist, reported back that it was probably just myokymia brought on by stress. (“Everyone in New York City is stressed – plus, you’re planning a wedding.”) So for the last 33 days, whenever I have a conversation that lasts longer than 60 seconds – the approximate cadence in between spasms – I abruptly look away or tap the corner of my eye as though I am deep in thought, when really I’m just tamping down my fluttering anxiety.
I never wanted to be the person who penned a personal essay about wedding stress. To toot my own horn here for a brief moment: the consistent piece of feedback I receive from friends and acquaintances that makes me feel good about myself is that I am a so-called “chill” person – a trait that living in New York City for nearly a decade has surely started to chisel away at, but nonetheless a core component of my personality that I cling to. Right now, though, there is a question that sends me into an uncharacteristic, decidedly not chill panic: have you found a dress yet?
I’m aware – world’s tiniest violin – that finding a wedding dress can be stressful. I’m not winning any sympathy or novelty awards here. But when confronted with the pressure to encapsulate your entire essence in one single dress, how can one possibly choose? I want to express a multitude of emotions that somehow feel in conflict with each other when distilled into clothing form. Sexy but soft, whimsical but practical, sleek yet complex… buying a wedding dress feels like a torturous practice in self-expression, one in which you must pigeonhole yourself into what type of bride you are and are not. Am I a Cecilie Bahnsen ballerina bride? Perhaps a bow-bedecked Sandy Liang lady? An elegant Khaite woman? A bold Bernadette character? Maybe even a Molly Goddard muse? Honestly – all of the above!
At the risk of sounding hokey, I had hoped a dress that embodied the unique facets of my personality would emerge. A tendency to buck tradition, quietly creative, a little bit romantic, not too dramatic, and with a predilection for nostalgia. But as I continue my search, no garment hits all the marks.
Of course, I could just cease my whining, pick a dress, and be done with it. But there’s the rub – I haven’t. I can’t? I can’t! In waiting for the one to grace my laptop screen and sweep me off my feet, I’ve managed to find myself three months out from my wedding with absolutely nothing to wear. (Save for the pair of Neous strappy heels that I chose a month after getting engaged. No brainer there!)
Conventional bridal rule of thumb says you should purchase your wedding dress eight to nine months out from your wedding. I got engaged in March of 2023 and will wed in August of this year, which gave me ample time to sort it out. But as timeline markers came – and went – I began to realise there was an issue. At this point, if I even stepped foot inside a bridal salon, I presume my three-month deadline would give the team a conniption.
And this isn’t procrastination, dear reader; I’ve been looking consistently for over a year now, to no avail. On one recent day when my bum eye was experiencing a particularly furious set of twitches and I had to return yet another dress to UPS that didn’t work out, I did something out of character: I took to Instagram. “Do I know any other brides who put off buying their dress til the last minute because they can’t find anything they like? Just me?” The responses flooded in almost immediately.
“Literally me. Didn’t have my dress until two weeks before the day.”
“Omg yes and then everything was like ‘you need to order three months in advance’ and I was like my wedding is in 30 days…”
“I picked my shoes the night before.”
“I got something cheap and ended up tailoring it to my needs because I couldn’t find what I wanted.”
“I ordered a dress four days before my wedding that a friend picked out for me.”
“Yes. Super overwhelming. Two weeks before my wedding I wound up getting a sundress for $65 at a little shop at the end of the street. I’m still fine with the decision and I still have the dress after 13 years of marriage.”
“That was me! I got mine the month before.”
I was not alone in my mercurial attitude toward wedding dresses, it seemed. Through a haphazard Instagram poll, I had unearthed a community of individuals who experienced similar struggles, and in doing so, felt a wave of relief, albeit fleeting. (I still need something to wear, lest we forget.)
I wouldn’t blame you for writing this kind of conundrum off as vapid. I get it – if your main problem in life is that you cannot find a wedding dress, you’ve got it pretty good. But it isn’t my main problem. It’s just one I didn’t expect I’d be dealing with. And one that, truly, very few brides talk about. I’ve heard countless tales of trying on that one magical dress and bursting into tears because they just knew it was the one. I’m still tapping my foot for that epiphany to arrive.
Lamenting my lack of decisiveness over dinner with a friend the other evening, she responded succinctly: “It’s the dress you like in the moment.” A simple proverb, but profound enough. It’s the dress you like in the moment. Tastes evolve, silhouettes change, and as long as I like what I’m wearing in the moment, that’s fine enough.
If I look back at my wedding and look like a tulle cottagecore cupcake, so be it! The notion that a wedding dress must encapsulate who you are as a person feels antiquated. An appreciation for wearing a cute outfit surrounded by the people you love should be enough. (Something I never thought I’d need reminding of, but here we are.) Keeping this in mind, I’ll be self-imposing a deadline to choose a dress I – in the moment – within the next few weeks. Wish me (and my eyelid) good luck.
