Tuesday, December 29, 2009

WEDDING DRESS BLUES

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful daughter, who wanted to get married in a very special wedding dress. She saw it in a magazine, we went to have her try it on, and it was ordered and on it's way. Little did the mother know what horrors were ahead. Nor did the daughter. But let's skip forward to happily ever after dress.

The ending--the dress arrived, altered correctly, hanging in the dressing room, ready to wear down the aisle.
Sisters both have beautiful dresses, not to mention well fitting dresses, sashes and everything in place. Even the flowers were in the proper hands.The sides were altered, everything fit to perfection. The hair, simply elegant.

Rewind. What does a mother do when the daughter calls and says the dress was altered wrong in Italy. They measured and ordered the wrong size. They can't fix it. The mother calms the daughter down, while thumping her foot on the hardwood floor. The plans are set, for another alteration, for a talk with the company, for tears 2000 miles away, for a desire to fly by to Texas and yank on my boots, if you know what I mean. But no...I maintained my composure, let the telephone ring and tears come, let my daughter continue alteration appointments until the error was fixed.

And then I vented. I grabbed wall paper, ribbon, lace, big Christmas bows, and made a dress, I called it the ugly option dress. And I worked all day, all night on this ugly option dress. I had the design mimic my daughters dress in some ways, and in areas I put the errors. This is the front.
This is the back view.

The hem line and back that needed major alterations.

My Christmas bow hanging off the shoulder, to cover other dreamt up alteration errors.
And the back view, up close, of the sparkles, the skirt line, the dreams of the true dress vs the ugly option dressMore sparkles and edges unhemmed (had to fit my distress issues in some way...)
Fast forward. She walked down the aisle, escorted by daddy, beautiful, stunning in the perfect wedding dress. We all were happily ever after. And even better, I am finally catching up to 2008, when this all happened. I'm only behind 2 years on scrapping, or so I tell myself...
Bliss to all.
Elaine

6 comments:

Paula Calvanico said...

You are truly something Elaine!! This was too cute, how you create will never cease to amaze me.

What would a wedding be without stress and tears. And she looked breathtaking!

Lisa Adair said...

I remember these stories... but what a way to express them and find closure... and now so many months after the happy ending and I do's were said, you guys can find laughter... I hope anyway!

mandysea said...

This is just sooooooo clever!! The way you set up the disclosure of events and the Dress of Errors - wow!

I was CAPTIVATED!!

That was some little journey!

Clever clever clever!

(I'm so pleased there was happy ending!)

courtney said...

Wow....what else can I say but wow?
I don't know what is more impressive about you, Elaine; your story-telling, your artistic interpretations or your ability to look past the rain and see the rainbow.

Julie said...

Wow what a story and I love the dress you have created.

Anonymous said...

Elaine, you are an amazing woman! I love how you took what was awful and used it toward creating something that took all of your faculties to produce. What a very wise way in which to utilize that type of energy!