Wedding Series: The Dress!

I put off looking for my dress for a very long time. I'm not a very emotional person, and, thanks to my IBS ruining my social life, I don't have many friends to tag along and make it super fun. I also have some body image issues now that I'm so skinny, so I thought I'd look weird in dresses. Kind of like some of the wedding gown models that look like they're about to cave in on themselves. I was just not very excited to start looking.

Then throw in IBS and the possibility of urgency or having to pass gas when I'm being helped into a dress by my consultant, and I was really dreading my appointment. I'm lucky enough to not be dealing with a whole lot of urgency right now, and I trust that I can pop an extra half an imodium in case I start to feel some coming on and stop it pretty quickly. Knowing I could trust in that helped me not completely freak out about being stuck in a massive dress wondering if I was going to have to buy it because I'd ruined it or something.

If we had decided to get married 3 years ago, I'm honestly not sure how I would have handled my dress appointments. Back then, I was mostly confined to my house and was dealing with almost constant urgency if I had eaten that day. If you're at that point in your life, this could be a serious hurdle to tackle. If it were me, I would have approached my appointments differently; I would have done a little more research about what the places were like. Two of the three bridal stores I went to had very personable consultants and they were all about me. If I didn't feel comfortable in a dress, we'd take it off right away. One of the stores I went to, it was all about the gowns. I didn't like that one? Ugh, I just had bad taste. I feel like if I started to have an episode and either had to cut my appointment short or hop out of a dress and run to a bathroom, I would be banned from the store. It was very anxiety-inducing and made me feel uncomfortable even though I consider myself to be in a good place right now, symptom-wise.

Another piece of advice I'd offer is to search for your dress when it's COLD! I was burning up getting in and out of these dresses! I don't know about you guys, but when I start to have urgency or my stomach starts churning, I get really hot, and that heat I feel just makes me feel like it's even more urgent that I book it to the bathroom. My cheeks turn red, I feel like I have literal steam coming off the top of my head, and sometimes I feel a little light-headed like I'm having a heat stroke or something. I know it's just anxiety, but knowing that I could just stand by an open window or step outside and cool off made me feel better. Now that I think of it, though, they usually blast the heat when it's too cold out, so maybe go in the spring/fall ;)

Alright, the last thing I'll talk about on this subject is comfort. When I'm having a horrible episode, and I'm up and going every 5 minutes, I'm wearing sweatpants or shorts so I don't have to worry about possibly not getting my pants off quickly enough. Wedding dresses completely fail in this department; unless you've decided to go with a short dress, you're screwed. I'm screwed. My fiance reads my blog, so I can't say which shape of dress I decided to go with, but I'm a little afraid I messed up and didn't consider at all how I was going to use the restroom on our wedding day. I don't know if I even should have considered that because your wedding dress is just supposed to be something that makes you feel like your absolute most beautiful self on your big day.  I was proud of myself for not considering this at first, but now I'm a little worried. I found Pinterest to be quite helpful in calming myself down about this- there's something on there about using a trash bag to contain your dress while you do your business, and it looks like it just might work.

Bottom line- take only the people who will help you feel comfortable and won't push you to stay and look when you start to feel sick, do whatever it takes to decrease your chances of having urgency while you're trying on dresses, do your research about the people who work at the stores you're visiting- do reviews say they always have your best interests at heart?- they should, don't go shopping when it's 100 degrees out- you'll just feel worse, and maybe consider how comfortable you're going to feel wearing that dress allll dayyyyy longggg on your wedding day.

Don't let your IBS ruing this moment for you! Getting in that dress that's "the one" and having it finally hit you that you're going to marry the love of your life in that dress is amazing. I didn't feel like a bride until I was wearing my dress. IBS gets to steal so many moments away from you already; just be prepared and don't let it take this one!