She Said Yes to the Dress

A few days after Christmas, Caelan learned that two lady cousins in our church have another lady cousin who owns a bridal boutique just a few minutes from Noah's family's house. She also learned that they were having a yearend clearance sale, to give brides an opportunity to look through their selection of discontinued dresses before they were donated to charity, the day before New Year's Eve. Amazingly, enough, there was one time slot open after Caelan finished with work, on a day Gabby could go in to work early, and Noah's mom and sisters were free! Well, then Noah's sister's husband got a positive Covid test, so she had to watch from a very wifi spotty Facetime connection, but it worked out just fine :)

A quick search of the racks showed that no dresses were small enough for Caelan, so lots of clips were put in to use to get the idea of proper fit. She picked out six of the smallest dresses, (only one was on the big sale), and the enthusiastic and expectant bridal consultant helped her try them on. I wish I could show you each one in order, but they are saved on a behind-the-scenes post which will have to wait for late summer to appear :) She tried on just about every style except mermaid and tried her two favorites twice. There was a pretty obvious winner, so the bridal gal said, "Caelan . . . I have a question for you . . ." I said, "Wait, I need to start my video!" Pause, okay. "Are you saying yes to the dress?"

And then I started crying :) Noah's mom started crying on the very first dress, so I was in good company! I forgot to mention that the bridal consultant found a pair of heels, which made the dress length just right--no alterations needed. It will have to be taken in quite a bit on the sides, but I have a list of their trusted seamstresses in our area, so that should be fairly easy to fix. We don't actually have the dress yet, because it needed to be steamed and cleaned. Oh, and Caelan might take out some of the fluff and she can likely shorten the straps herself, but it is all-around gorgeous and she looks lovely in it!

To complete the look, the consultant put a veil on Caelan's head and handed her a bouquet of flowers. Noah's mom loved how well the veil matched the dress and immediately offered to buy it for Caelan. Caelan was planning to make her own veil, but it was an offer she couldn't refuse, because the veil really does match perfectly :)

Having the gown selected makes everything seem really real! How exciting!

After the shopping adventure, we went back to Noah's family's home and met one of his groomsmen. We all enjoyed pizza from a local restaurant and talked and got to know each other better. It was a good day!

** I should add that Caelan arrived home slightly early from work and planned to jump in the shower before we left for the hour drive to her appointment. I, too, planned to jump in the shower after finishing my exercise bike, time was ticking, we needed to get on the road! I turned the handle to my shower and . . . no water. I tried the sink--water! I flipped on the lights--electricity! I tried the shower again . . . no water. It worked fine yesterday! It sounds like no big thing, but at the time was so inconvenient that I just had to laugh. I don't recall having ever used the kids' shower (it's scary in there!), but with no other choice . . . I dug my robe--which I haven't worn in a decade--out of my closet and took a super quick wash after Caelan finished hers. Somehow we still made it out of the door on time! It turns out, Buck discovered, that the plastic piece inside the shower handle had snapped off, so there was nothing to catch inside the pipe to make the valve open and let the water come out. It was a super easy fix after a trip to the hardware store for a replacement handle, but what crazy timing for it to incomprehensibly snap. Good life lesson--no matter how well you plan, you can't always plan for the unexpected! Be ready to come up with another plan and try to have a good attitude about it :)