Every year I am required to go dress shopping, whether it be for a pageant, a dance, or a formal event. This year’s horrendous shopping experience goes to (drum roll please) dress shopping for my brother’s wedding.

My sister and I are candle lighters in his wedding, and we were supposed to find matching dresses. We started out last Saturday morning happy and full of cheer, thinking that we would have plenty to choose from. We went to Demetries first, not realizing that it would take four months to get dresses. Their dresses were all really ugly anyways, so we decided to move on to the mall.

We started out in Nordstrom, happy in our good timing that we had arrived on the morning of a giant sale. That would’ve been helpful, if the store had had any special occasion gowns that weren’t designed for an eighty year old.

After Nordstrom we moved on to Macy’s. They had plenty of dresses in both the plum and the mocha colors (Rebecca’s colors) and many of them were very cute. Hannah and I grabbed about ten dresses each and then headed into the dressing room. Many of the dresses looked very cute on Hannah…and would’ve looked good on me if they came in my size.

Last year when I went dress shopping I bought size 14, and they fit really well. Those same dresses still fit really well. But for some reason the new 14s do not fit at all.

Resolving to just get over the number, Hannah and I picked a couple of dresses we really liked.

Enter Mom….

After listening to about a ten minute tirade on cleavage (and why we shouldn’t have any) Hannah and I put a couple of dresses back. Then we took out our selections and asked the lady at the help desk if she could check if the dresses came in a 16 at another store. She kind of glared at us and then said, “NONE of our dresses come in a size larger than 14.”

Well excuse me, but they did last year. Then as we decided to head on to the next store (bummed and discouraged) she shouted at us with a parting insult, ” Now I just KNOW y’all left a huge mess for me.”

First of all, we had been very careful to hang the dresses back on their appropriate hangers, and on the wall. Shaking our heads at the horrid employee and lack of dress sizes we headed over to Penney’s.

Gag me.

They had the ugliest dresses I’d ever seen. There were about two that were passable.

We headed over to David’s Bridal next. They had a couple of dresses that were cute and in the correct colors, but they didn’t look very good on us. And once again, they only went up to a 14.

Getting even more disgruntled (and blistered) we went back through the mall and stopped at every. single. store. No luck. We even stopped into Sears we were so desperate. Nothing.

By this point I was so depressed and upset (nothing fit me, it all fit my sister, so I was the one holding up the process) that I burst into tears in the middle of the mall.

By this point I was feeling so fat and ugly that I didn’t care.

Sensing that something drastic must be done, my mom and sister guided me over to a hair salon and sent me in for a wax and cut.

I started to calm down when I laid back in the comfortable beauty chair, and I was almost completely relaxed during the waxing. That is until the stylist dripped oil into my eye. It was citrus, and immediately my eye began to burn. I had to take about a fifteen minute break to flush out my eye over and over again until the burning subsided and she could continue her work.

Eventually I was ready to get the haircut, and she started snipping away. She straightened it, but the bottom layer was so straight it looked almost as though I had a mullet. I had her make the bottom layer choppy, and then it was really cute.

Here is my hair straight and flipped:

When she was done I felt a lot better and prettier (even though half of my makup was gone, and half of my face was bright red).

Feeling a little more optimistic we decided to go back to Macy’s and see if I couldn’t squeeze into anything.

This is hours later, but the same employee is still there. The first thing she says is, “You guys are back? Ugh. What happened?” and then she sent us to a different dressing room because hers was ‘booked’.

She was the rudest employee I have ever met, and she had the “soul sista” attitude down to a ‘t’. If I had been her boss, I would have at least put her on probation.

Hannah and I grabbed the dresses we had liked best, and we got most of them zipped up (but a little tight).

We finally found one that looked beautiful, and while it only came in a 14 it could zip and didn’t look too bad,but I am going to try to lose about 10 pounds. I have 6 weeks so it should be doable.

Here is a picture of it, but it will be in chocolatey brown.

Mom of course had a fit and said that we had to get lace inserts for the front. Whatever.

So after all of that (six hours of hell) I had a blister that covered about half of my right foot, a headache, but I did have a dress purchased (Hannah would have to pick it up at a different mall) and a haircut, and newly define eyebrows.

So while it was NOT the most pleasant of days, eventually it came to a close. The bride approved the dresses, and now I just have to lose a little weight.

But I’m still not quite sure as to why last years 14s still fit me perfectly, but this years are too small.

That’s retail for ya.

Sincerely,

Emilie Esther-Ann