The one where I curse a lot but much less than I actually did at the time

Right away I knew things were bad. It was a small tell, really. I looked in my mom's car window and could see my dress. "Uhhhhhhh, why the hell is my dress visible through the bag? What happened to the opaque bag I gave you?"

"I guess the seamstress switched bags. What's the big deal?" asked my, bless her, totally immigrant mother who knows zero about wedding traditions.

"The big deal is that IC is not supposed to see my dress and as we live together and are traveling to Turks together on Thursday, that's going to be a problem with a see-through bag." I'd like to say I didn't use the "f" word somewhere in there. I really, really would.

What's funny is that I was already pissed off. And nothing all that bad had happened yet. It was like my body was preparing me for what was to come. Like, what kind of professional wedding dress seamstress doesn't know the whole "don't return my dress to me in a clear bag" rule? I knew, without really knowing.

We got upstairs and took the dress out of the bag.

I had asked that the shrug attached to the dress be made detachable so I could wear it under the chuppah but remove it for the reception.

It wasn't.

I had asked for cups to be sewn into the dress.

There were no cups.

I had asked for a bustle.

There was some random, ugly hook attached to my otherwise beautiful row of buttons on the back of my dress.

In short, if I had altered my own dress, having never sewn, knitted or otherwise constructed or altered a piece of clothing in my life, I might have come up with this type of bustle.

The lining had a very visible tear in it.

And there were FUCKING SAFETY PINS holding my dress onto the hanger.

That's about when I lost it. I don't feel like I had ever *burst* into tears before but seeing the total disaster of a dress that had been returned to me after alterations, I was left with no other choice. So burst I did.

At that point, IC rang the doorbell. I tried to wipe my tears because yo, I'm not crying over a dress but as soon as I saw him I just started crying harder. "The dress...is all fucked up."

"Hey. Heyyyyy. Baby. Baaaaaaby. It's ok, tell me what's wrong."

"The shrug, still attached, the lining is ripped, there are saaaaaaafetyyyyyyy piiiiiiiiiins in my dress."

"Baby, it's ok, it's ok. We're still getting married, right?"

And then I burst into a smile. I was bursting a lot.

Then IC took control of the situation. We found the list Kleinfeld's had given me when I bought the dress, of people they recommend to do alterations. Why didn't I use the list in the first place? Well, because my otherwise awesome mom had assured me that she had a lady in Brooklyn who was the most amazing seamstress of all time and she did wedding dresses all the time and I should totally take my dress to her. So I did. And if the woman has ever handled a wedding dress before in her life then I feel bad for all those brides. Because she sucks. Not just sucks a little. I could forgive fucking up the bustle, despite the fact that the horrendous fashion in which she fucked it up is unforgivable. But she clearly cared not at all about any of my other requests and I consider it a small miracle that she got the length right at all.

I was going to call her and bitch her out but honestly, I wouldn't want to be the seamstress when my mom goes to see her tomorrow. My mom may be small and cute and sweet but MAN, stay out of her way when she's been wronged.

IC called a seamstress on the list and made an appointment for me for two hours later.

In the car with my mom on the way to the Seamstress Savior, she could not stop raving about IC. "What a man! The way he takes care of you, looks at you, talks to you. It's just amazing. I've never seen such love." And while she was saying that IC texted me something absurdly sweet and I almost started crying again.

The new seamstress seemed entirely capable, showed me a few different types of bustles and recommended one (as opposed to the other seamstress who just assured me she would make one which was fine with me as I assumed that meant she knew what she was doing. Not so much.) and assured me she'd have the dress back to me by Tuesday, maybe even Monday. It's cutting it close but as the alternative is the dress as it currently is, I'll take it. Oh, and bonus, she makes veils, so I'm not going to have to mad scramble to find one this weekend.

The theme of a lot of my posts have been "a lot has gone wrong but it looks like things are going to be alright." My friend Dawn refers to this as "everything always works out for Karol." The fact is, it's not that things magically work out, just that I choose to focus on the positive and disregard the negative. The positive is that the love of my life, the guy with whom I laugh my head off and share food and argue about gun control and drink wine and read the same books and play one-on-one poker, who is sleeping next to me on our couch as I type this and looks so cute I want to leave bite marks in his cheek, is also the guy who takes care of me and has the right words when I'm upset and can make me feel good with just a look. If I get all that at the end of the day, how much can I really care about pin marks in my dress? So yeah, things may well work out if we're on a plane to Turks&Caicos on Thursday and then we're married on Monday. Things just might be ok.