Say Stress to the Dress

I’m going wedding dress shopping for the first time tomorrow. Most girls seem to live for this moment, having dreamed of it since they were little. And even I have found myself glued to episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress” and worshiping the holy books: bridal magazines. But tonight, I feel nervous.

Yes, I will have my two companions with me tomorrow. Girls who’ve known me since I was 13, who’ve been there through the best and worst times, and who even attended the last party that celebrated me in a white dress: my bat-mitzvah.

But every other girl I know has tried on bridal gowns in front of her mother, has emerged twirling from dressing rooms to oohs and ahhs from the one woman on this planet who thinks her daughter simply can’t look bad in anything she tries on. If things were different, I know I would have gone with Sally.

At 29, nine years after she passed, shouldn’t I be accustomed to this way of life? Or will I always cry the night before big milestones like these?