A year ago, my Mom and I went wedding dress shopping. It was a traumatic, horrible, terrible experience. We knew we on a tight schedule to get a dress ordered, tailored, and ready by a March wedding date, so we set off for David's Bridal. I had gotten both of my high school prom dresses there and was comfortable with how things worked, plus we were confident we could find something in the price range- and being from a small town, you only have so many options. We walked in and were greeted by enthusiastic, helpful employees and grabbed some dresses off the rack to get started. That's where things went downhill.
You see, while I'd been "recovering" from an eating disorder for years, it had only been a small period of time since my last relapse, which consisted of mostly bulimic behaviors. Thus, I wasn't really underweight, so when the behaviors stopped, the water weight/bloating/weight gain came on rather quickly (even to a "nondisordered" onlooker- I gained 30 pounds in 4 weeks, which is enough to freak just about anyone out). In the midst of the weight gain and swelling, here I was, trying to find a dress that could make me feel beautiful. I was in the middle of an experience that I had dreamed of for my whole life- I mean, what little girl doesn't dream of trying on wedding dresses and becoming a bridal princess? That day was nothing like I dreamed of though. It was just me and my mom- I didn't have many friends, and none that I was close enough to to invite to such an intimate event. I was attempting to find dresses, having no idea what size I wore, what size I'd be on the wedding day, if the swelling would go down, if I'd keep gaining weight- I was freaking out.
By the time I tried 3 or 4 dresses on, I was a mess. A terrible, horrible, crying mess that just wanted to lay on the floor. I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't care about the stupid dress anymore. I told my mom that enough was enough and we'd have to come back another day. Every dress had something that accentuated some body part that I was uncomfortable with. They all seemed to squeeze the fat under my armpits. I felt like I was oozing out of my dress. Then, the wonderful angel of a lady that was working with us said, "Let me try to find just one more". We described the issues I was having, and armed with that information, she went looking for the dress...and boy, did she find it.
For the first time in ages, I felt beautiful. It was a little snug, so we ordered it a size up.
And I rang the little bell and said yes to the dress. :)
Now, that isn't really the end of the story.
Nope, of course not.
You see how those buttons are unbuttoned? That caused a problem.
In January, when the dress arrived...we had a bit of a problem.
The dress I tried on in November was a size 6.
We ordered a size 8.
Come January, the size 8 didn't fit once it was fully buttoned- yet I was the same size on the scale and in all of my other clothes- thus we blamed the buttons. DB was wonderful, and we tried some more sizes on, ended up reordering the dress- this time in a 14. For someone that is obsessed with numbers and sizes and body image, this was a terrible thing. I cried. I sobbed. I screamed at T that I wanted to relapse. That I wanted to get all of this water weight (that still wasn't gone) off of my body.
In February, I was hospitalized to try and figure out what the heck was going on with my digestive system. Why I was still retaining all of this water.
After many test, we still had no answers. I was more bloated than ever. I remember taking a picture of my stomach one night...I looked nine months pregnant, and that wasn't just the eating disorder voice talking- anyone I shared it was agreed. I was in pain, in agony- physically and emotionally.
A week later, I had my dress fitting for the tailoring.
It was terrible. I cried. My dress "fit", but I was so uncomfortable. Everything seemed so big. We couldn't take the part around my stomach in to make it as fitted as planned, since that would just accentuate the bloat that much more. I felt miserable, but I pressed on. The tailoring was finished. The final fitting, everything fit, and I "kind of" low-key liked it.
March 14, 2015, I walked down the aisle in the size 14 gown, and my groom told me I looked beautiful.
He didn't care if the bloat showed a little.
He didn't care about the number on the tag.
All he cared about was spending the rest of his life with me.
All he cared about was me being okay.
He thought I was beautiful.
He taught me I was beautiful.
And that's when I knew that all of the tears cried over the dress,
All of the pain that the process created,
It didn't matter anymore.
My beauty wasn't defined by a number on a tag.
It wasn't determined by whether or not I had "fat arms" sticking out of my dress.
All of that went away, all of that was meaningless, when I saw the look on my groom's face as I walked down the aisle of the church.
I was a beautiful bride.
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