So the pressure was on. I needed to pick the bustle, and I needed to pick it now.

I mentally processed the fact that I couldn’t see behind me anyway, and this decision would also affect the bridesmaid who would have to bustle the dress. I remembered the time I had to bustle Julie’s wedding dress, which required diagrams, multiple witnesses and participants, plus pencil marks on the dress so you would know that Ribbon A goes through Loop B and so forth.

So I made the snap decision. Ass tack. They could simply tack my train to my ass. “Let’s go with up,” I said. Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I meant it. I didn’t have time to dwell.

Next the tailor pinned in the top of the dress at the waist and the boobs. The dress shop lady pointed out a pair of beige boob cups lying on the floor. “I got you the bust cups,” she pointed. The tailor shrugged. I tried to gauge the thickness of the cups and wondered if it would matter that she pinned the dress without the cups inside.

“She’s the expert,” I reminded myself. “She’s probably done this a thousand times. She probably pinned the dress and left enough room for the cups.”

Next, I was instructed to stand still so the tailor could pin up the inner-layer hem of my skirt.

“Don’t talk and don’t move,” the dress shop lady said. “She’s going to cut the overlay.”

Have you ever seen the Sex and the City episode where Carrie and one of the girls jokingly try on wedding dresses, and then Carrie breaks out in hives and hyperventilates and starts screaming, “Get this thing off me?”

Well, try standing still in your wedding dress while someone takes a scissors to it. I didn’t move, but holy crap was my brain running wild. The hyperventilating? Almost. Because the “don’t move” caused me to take shallow breaths. Then as the bottom became uneven and she cut more on one side to even it out, I started thinking about the time in college I went to Super Cuts for a trim and came out with my hair a full 6 inches shorter because of the cutting on one side then cutting on the other side to even it out, but cutting too much, and then cutting the other side …

But the tailor is a pro, and she didn’t cut too much, and it will be great. I just didn’t take pleasure in having to wear the dress while she cut it. But being the pro, I can imagine she knows that if she cut the dress on the table instead of with me in it, then it could possibly come out uneven in case I stand funny or have one leg longer then the other or whatever it would be that would make a dress come out more uneven than if say, I sneezed or yawned or hiccupped or [insert involuntary movement like hyperventilating here] while she was cutting it.

And then it was over. I took off the dress and went home. On the ride home, I realized that I was in and out in about 20 minutes. Not bad.

But then the real doubt set in over the bustle.

To Be Continued…