Say Yes To The Dress (At least, I keep hoping to say it)

Pete was sitting in bed, listening to music on his laptop. I went in, laid next to him, and basically collapsed on his lap.

"This is hard," I complained. "I'm getting burnt out."

"Did you think it was going to be easy?" he said.

"Not easy, but, like, the situation is just so incredibly frustrating that it's, well, it's not fun anymore."

"You've been saying this every single time," he reminded me.

And he's right. Every step of the way has been such an arduous task, so why I thought wedding dress shopping would be any different is a mystery to me.

I started out all excited, ready to play dress up.

And now, four stores and a couple dozen dresses later, I'm starting to look unhappy.

What's working out in my favor (or not, depending on how you look at it) is, as one consultant after another told me: I have a body for wedding dresses. One consultant told me that means I can fill out the top of a wedding dress, which is usually something brides-to-be can't do.

I was shocked because my whole life, I've been pretty flat chested. But I'm "fat for me" right now, and I've gained it all in my chest. So luckily, every dress I've tried on, from a size 4 to a 12, have actually fit pretty accurately. I'll know where the waist will hit, where the hem will fall, exactly how the train will look when I walk down the aisle. Every dress looks gorgeous but no dress is the dress. Nothing has made me cry. Nothing has made me think, "I don't care what the price tag is, I need this."

It's frustrating.

I've been to so many stores and tried on so many wedding dresses that at this point, I've gone from saying, "I want a dress with a big bottom and no straps" to "I'm looking for a ball gown with a tiered bottom or an A-line with a ruffled skirt, no pickups, with a sweetheart neck. I really prefer beaded tops, but I would do lace. I like organza and hate tulle and English netting."

I said that at one store when she asked what I was looking for and the reply was, "Well you just outruled the entire store."

I didn't even tell her that I was also vetoing anything with a basque waist.

It's not that I'm being overly picky (although with a wedding dress, it's definitely okay to be). It's that I've tried on more dresses than I can remember and I'm learning exactly what I want. The trouble is, I just can't find it.

So when a consultant asks me what my budget is, I say I don't have one. And it's true. At no point in this process have I even looked at the price tag on a dress before deciding to try it on. I don't want to limit myself. And so far, nothing has come close to the enormous budget I'm giving myself. I mean, it's so high that it's the entire budget of some weddings. Would I spend that? Oh, gosh, I hope not. But I've been allowing myself to mentally spend that so that I don't limit the wedding dresses I try on.

It's just mentally draining, to be honest. Please tell me I'm not the only one who went through this.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Is it just me or did you have a tough time finding a wedding dress as well?