Just keep swimming...

My wedding dress arrived a little over a week ago.  It took me about that long muster up enough courage to try it on.  If you need a reminder as to why, you can read about it here.

This was on Sunday morning and I was by myself, so I thought that would be the perfect time to try it on.  MacGyver wouldn't be around to see it, and I could prepare myself for what I would look like in privacy.  It seemed logical at the time.

The dress laces up the back, but that really just seemed like a lot of work, so I tried it on without that first.  That's when I discovered that the dress weighs 17 metric tons.

I'm not exaggerating.  I might have permanent dents in my body from this thing by the end of the night.

It took some wiggling, but I managed to pull it down over my head and more or less into position.  Everything looked fine from the front, but the back was gaping open and I immediately concluded that the dress was too small and we wouldn't be able to lace it up.

(That was my conclusion, 'it's too small.'  Not, 'you didn't lace it up, Stupid, that's why the back is gaping.'  Sheesh.)

Anyway, I panicked and wiggled back out of it, determined to lace it up and make sure it was going to fit.  Mind you, the back laces up all the way from slightly below my waist, all the way up to between my shoulder blades.  It's a lot of lacing, is what I'm saying.  This will be even more important in a moment.

I get the thing laced all the way up like it's supposed to, but I leave it a little loose because I'm not that dumb and I know I'm going to need a little wiggle room to get it on.  I've done this once before about 5 minutes ago.  I'm a professional.

With a lot more wiggling and yarnking, I got back on.  To my utter relief, the dress fits beautifully.  Truly, it's a really wonderful dress, with only subtle marshmallow undertones.  Breathing a whole lot easier now that I knew the dress fit and I wouldn't be parading around in a sheet-toga, I started to take it off so I could put it away and not have to worry about it for another few months.

Heh.  Remember all those laces?  And the wiggling and yarnking it took to get everything in place once the laces were laced?

About that.

As it turns out, when the dress weighs 17 metric tons, and is fully laced, it's near impossible to get it back off again.

Sadly, Crush, I did not have my exit buddy.  Which meant I had to unlace the damn dress again to get it back off.  The whole thing.

Which is irritating in and of itself, but I'm also not a side-show contortionist.  I can't reach the whole area of my back with both hands at the same time.  And the taffeta was catching on the loops and not wanting to slide through...

After several minutes of wiggling and tugging and swearing, and a mild panic attack when I envisioned myself as a modern day Miss Havisham, forever stuck in her wedding dress, minus the man-hating business, I had a small epiphany.

I grabbed the hangar on which I had been storing the dress and was able to reach back and spring myself free from the laces.

After several more minutes, and a lot of swearing, I managed to wiggle back out of that dress.

Lessons learned today: Never put on a wedding dress without an exit buddy.  Be thankful it laces up and doesn't button up with those teeny tiny little wedding dress buttons.