Point #7-Halloween Costumes Suck, and Wedding Dresses are Exceedingly Comical

I am busily working on my sooper sekrut awesome Halloween costume…if by “working on it” I mean “thinking really hard about it”. It’s always been hard to get really excited about something I will wear once and then dismantle, throw away, or forget about. That’s why I never buy one, because it’s a total waste of money to me; at least when I make it, I have created something that I won’t feel bad about ripping to shreds and changing up later.

I couldn’t even get too aerated about my wedding dress, lo, these many years ago. I went by myself, utterly sans the huge rock star sized entourages most brides are packing. I fairly coldbloodedly picked out something that met my precise requirements, which is to say, “fit me”…well, and was froofy and lacy enough to double as dessert topping…got basic alterations and called it a day. I like the show “Say Yes to the Dress”, because I can experience that deeply special emotion that is a combination of crying like a big gay monkey at the heartwarming tales, scarcely restrained glee at some of the consultants’ bitchiness, and a nice soupcon of “WTF?-the natural reaction to seeing some numbnuts spend more on a dress than I have ever dropped on a car-nicely giving the whole thing savor. But I, myself, found a deeply discounted confection that was roughly what I thought defined a wedding dress for me, little thinking of the hilarious effect it would have years later.

I’ve been divorced for five years now, but as my ex and I are still the best of friends, and I didn’t feel the need to destroy the dress in a fit of temper or pique, I still have the thing. I have visions of using it as a costume or gown for something someday, as long as fairly drastic alterations are made. I pulled it out one day recently, and my boyfriend (who is also friends with my ex and things are nice) said, “oh, that’s the wedding dress…let’s see it”. Wanting to give the full effect, I actually slid the dress on (as far as it would go, at least) and presented my enormous white form to him. He looked with horrified fascination at the large, puffed, slightly off the shoulder sleeves and said, “Are you hiding the sweatshop kids who made that thing IN the sleeves????”. I offered my counter to that remark in the form of a very special finger and said, “Yeah, it gets worse…don’t laugh”, whereupon I turned to reveal the horror of my ginormously bowed backside. This bow was large enough to shelter whole villages and be seen from space. It was the UberBow, a creature renowned in song and story. I had been told in wedding magazines-clearly as an elaborate prank-that an “interesting back” of the dress was preferred since that’s what the guests would be looking at through the ceremony and that for a girl with a broader beam, a bow was concealing and flattering. All it really did was make my ass look like the world’s saddest, most unwanted gift. Socks from Grandma had nothing on opening a present and finding my Big Bowed Butt inside. Needless to say, I think the most interesting thing about the guests getting to watch the Big Bowed Nightmare waft tantalizingly in front of them were the hilarious gales of laughter they were no doubt sharing at the sight.

So the moral is, kids, watch what you wear on your wedding day to avoid that charming “what the fuck was I thinking” moment ten or fifteen years hence. And make your own Halloween costumes. I have this big bow I can let you borrow.

Jessica