Sunday, October 12, 2008

Davids Bridal: The Inner Circle of Hell

Let's start this post out with a shout out to Undercover Nerd, who was married yesterday.

On that note, let's continue with the REAL point of this post, the bitter discontent with all things wedding-related, especially David's Bridal. As Undercover Nerd will be the first to point out, the entire wedding industry is run on a campaign of terror. Your dress? WILL NOT FIT. It also WILL NOT ARRIVE ON TIME. All orders must be placed roughly six months ahead of the wedding. Which is where our story begins.

Our lovely U.N. had selected yours truly to be one of her bridesmaids. Yes, so she could have someone to stand at the alter and COMPLAIN BITTERLY about everything. You know, because it makes the ceremony that much better. Anyhow, along with yours truly, there were three other bridesmaids, including the maid of honor. All of whom possess an inordinate amount of cleavage. One of which chose to sew a MODESTY PANEL into her dress, because, unlike the rest of us, she is TASTEFUL.

So off we troop to the bridal barn, to find a dress. With straps, that does not make us look like a sausage in the casing. For U.N., you see, did not want to be surrounded by a troop of Jimmy Dean breakfast links at her nuptuals, no. She wanted attractive, non-whiny maids to attend her. Perhaps she knew we would refuse to be her minions of bridal doom for the next few months otherwise. Easy enough, no?

Well, perhaps it would have been save for our attendant, who opted to not bring us any dresses, so U.N. and yours truly had to troop all over the store searching for dresses, which were loudly (by yours truly) being declared "FUGLY". At which point, a code word was needed. Lest we offend the blissful bethrothed in the store, who were looking shocked at my lack of love of the lace! and the frills! and the FUGLY! Good god! Did I mention the hideous, burning ugliness of some of those dresses? MY RETINA ARE BURNED?

The code word? BUCKET. Like that will fool them. Yes, the BUCKET dresses were left behind forlornly on the racks, and armloads of dresses were dragged back into the room. The attendant finally decided to help by bringing us STRAPLESS DRESSES. For a bunch of girls that could give Hooters a run for the money if they so chose.

In a flurry of chiffon and satin, lace and taffeta, dresses were yanked on & off, photos were taken, laughing ensued. Dresses were pronounced "too Golden Girls" or "Dag that makes you look like a Jimmy Dean" until the final contenders were selected for round TWO. Yes. Round two. Now with more 'maids!

Yours truly is hazy on the details, but is actually thinking there was one more stop in there, whereby she had to try on dresses again. Because there was. And this was the first stop on the incredible shrinking bridesmaid scale, which horrified the bridal barn.

You thought one of us was bad? Try all of us at once. And at this point, as yours truly had started to shed the lard from the horomone, I was already the wrong size. The lame attendant refused to admit, that holla! I might not be that size 10 or an 8 anymore, and I had to go find the 6 myself. Awesome. Then the dresses were all rejected summarily as BUCKET. The maid of honor needed a DIFFERENT DRESS. The bride had to find all of them herself for, lo, we were huffy at EVEN BEING IN A BRIDAL SHOP. Except for the one of us that's classy. With the modesty panel. She was good about everything. The rest of us? Not so much. With the snarking and the mocking and the getting the dagger-eyes from the brides who CAN'T BELIEVE that we're not all blissed out about a bridal barn in a STRIP MALL ON ROCKVILLE PIKE! THE NERVE.

Finally, the dresses are selected, BUCKET-FREE. We troop out, only one of us actually ordering the dress, with threats of death from the shop, because GOOD GOD, the WEDDING, it's ONLY THREE MONTHS AWAY. The dress that's ordered arrives three days later.

After many weeks go by, the bride to be reminds yours truly that the dress likely should be ordered, that the bridal barn had been harassing her daily because, the HELL? A BRIDESMAID HAS NOT ORDERED A DRESS AND THE WEDDING IS A MONTH AWAY.

So, back to David's Bridal, for lo, none of Queen Dweeb's clothes are fitting. Time for ANOTHER TREK UP THE PIKE! WOOT. Now with more burrito, because a burrito will make that dress fit MUCH BETTER. Back into the store, where the staff looks surprised to see me, and asks why I'm there (yeah, apparently little miss sunshine is their favorite customer in all the land, bick shock!). To try on the dress, Einstein.

Of course, my attendant? Nowhere to be found. Also nowhere to be found? A size 2. So the size 4 is nabbed, and put on. And it is MASSIVE. So then yours truly get to be the asshat that comes out and loudly demands: "DO YOU HAVE THIS IN A SIZE TWO? THIS FOUR IS FAR TOO LARGE. LOOK AT IT. HUGE."

It worked. They looked, dress was falling off of me, I was whisked back to alterations as guess what? NO SIZE TWOS to try on. And here's the best answer ever: order the four because the dress you order is ONE to ONE and ONE HALF INCHES SMALLER THAN THE ONE YOU TRY ON. Huh? Really? Because I try things on so that they fit. What is the purpose of having dresses that are bigger than what you order, pray tell? Seriously.

So yes, David's Bridal=the inner circle of hell.

Oh, and when my order was placed, this is what the chart looked like: everyone else's name and size, neatly arranged. Queen Dweeb. 10?8?6?4? ???????????

Literally.

Apparently, weight loss makes David's Bridal's head explode.

Oh, and yours truly was told when placing the order three weeks ahead of the wedding that the dress would arrive on the 12th, the day after the wedding. It arrived 5 days after the order was placed, of course. Fear mongers, they are.

No comments: