I'm all dressed out. missleigh and I went dress shopping yesterday. What an ordeal. The first place was in sort of an industrial/commercial area near Atlanta. There were people waiting for the doors to open at 1:00. When we got in, we found out that Leigh could only try on 5 dresses total. It turns out that she couldn't find that many she liked enough to try on, only four. The one she really liked looked like a big doily. Well, that's what she brought me for, an honest opinion!

While she was nekkid snd embarrased in front of her designated helper in the bridal section, I was up front fighting with the bridesmaid dresses. At first, a woman was helping me go through the list of style numbers I'd written down from the website. Some were not at the store, and some did not come in black. We ended up getting my first group of five dresses (the max for the "dressing room" - I use that term loosely, explanation momentarily) and I went back to try them on. The "dressing room" was one large room with mirrors. No curtains or doors to separate people for privacy. This was not cool. At first, I was the only one in there, but then the room filled with groups of women in various stages of undress. I know people were probably paying no attention to my lily-white ass, but still. I had no desire to drop trou in front of these strangers.

I ended up finding 2 or 3 I liked. I may have to go back there to get measured and order it, but I also found other retailers nearby.

There were only 2 dresses I liked at the second place, and one was a 2 piece mix-and-match thing. It was a straight skirt and v-neck halter. The other was similar to the dresses I liked at the first place, which were kind of a draped neckline with either spaghetti straps or sort of gathered straps. Surprisingly, these looked really good on me, though I'd thought they wouldn't. Also surpisingly, Leigh bought a dress. An actual bridal gown, and not a bridesmaid dress in white, as she'd considered. Her dress was new and not in any of the catalogs yet. When she came out of the dressing room to look at it in the wall of mirrors, people came up to her to tell her how good she looked in it. It was off-white, which looked better with her complexion that the white did. Neither of us expected she'd buy a dress so soon, but she was sure it was what she wanted. I think you get a feeling about such things. (Given that my dress was a cheapy from a discount store, my wedding experience was a little different.)

So yeah. I also need to figure out what we'll do for a bachelorette type of thing. Leigh has said she wants no naked dugans dangled in her face. I think a spa day would be nice, but expensive. And not everyone would want to or could afford to participate. Maybe a slumber party type thing would be fun, with movies and popcorn and candy and silliness. And beer for me. Sorry, no pillow fights in our lingerie.

I'm off today for MLK Jr. Day since I'm a bureaucrat. I just watched Trainspotting which has been collecting dust for over a month. I'll never get through the 80 something movies in my Netflix queue at this rate. So now I'll have lunch, watch my stories, go to the chiropractor, and do that Kathy Smith weights workout for the second time. Hopefully this time I won't be sore for three days.