So. I have a dress for the wedding.
You may wonder why this requires its own line, like an announcement. When the mother of the groom goes to look for, and buys, her dress only 8 weeks before the wedding and 7 weeks before she leaves for abovementioned wedding, everyone gets a little “twitchy”. It is not like I did not have 18 months to pick one.
Now we all know the drill. And by the way if you are perfect sized, slim, thin, curvy and sexy or any of those, then the next paragraph will not apply to you. I generally feel that what you like becomes your only real choice as everything looks good, one way or another, as opposed to us who not only have to try and choose what we like but also have a challenge around what looks good on us. Because my shape is round.
Number one when your son announces the wedding date - you immediately decide that you are not going to look fat on the wedding photos. This is a worldwide phenomenon. You then start one of many diets, each one stressing you a bit more. The date gets closer and closer, the pressure gets more and more and before you look again you are eating vast amounts of chocolate and are no further, or in my case, just lost 5kg. You know what? It actually doesn’t matter. Unless of course you cannot find a dress you feel great in 😂 - then it would matter a great deal.
So over time I collected 347 pictures from Temu, 809 off the internet and the infamous “mother of the groom” pages and 12839 random pics from social media, where I liked the top and not the bottom of a dress and vice versa and then also, after having wanted a certain colour all along, jumped around with what colour I was now lured by. All this because due to a clash, the original choice I was going to have made, and wanted for the past 2 years, could not be used, for a few reasons.
Now a side comment about any website featuring “mother of the groom” dresses. In these photos it seems that all mothers of grooms are aged 80 and above. All of them want the twin set and pearls or long dresses with a very certain stereotypical top, and have their hair up in severe chignons, wear elaborate family jewels around their necks and look like lead characters in either Bridgeton or The Adams Family. It also seems that you need to have a certain haughty look about you. I do not comply with any of the above. My hair usually looks like its normal I just got out of bed and was then driven over by a lawnmower style. I don’t do haughty and I am not over 80. The other options bizarrely seemed to have women more in my age group with very wide satin skirts and slits in them up to their panty line. I would end up looking part hooker and part mental patient. My son would be mortified.
And so I decided to have a dress made. Now my almost daughter-in-law has a seamstress mom. Not just any little seamstress. One whose work is beautiful, especially evening dresses and wedding dresses. She made all the dresses for the Bridesmaids and Matron of Honour. Given that she lives in Pretoria, and me in the Cape, the back and forward visiting of the kids just never worked out for getting my dress made by her. Which would have been a fantastic solution as she knows me well. So began the search for a seamstress in my area. Now I am not sure what illusion I was under, but my total budget seemed to mostly be one that covered only the material. That became a protracted crash and burn scenario.
After the 300th person I interact with at work became concerned about my lack of dress, my one close friend, in a stricter voice, said, “right - Monday we are going to Canal Walk when you finish work and we are not coming back until we have a dress”. Now that was the kind of instruction I needed. So on the appointed day off we went, her and her lovely daughter, and me - the mother of the groom. Next thing we were pulling up at the very very swish entrance to Bride & Co. I felt a little intimidated as we walked into what can only be described as something similar to those stores you see in TV reality shows. Hundreds of dresses, packed colour by colour in every colour under the sun. An elegant saleslady approached enquiring which selection we wished to look at. Mother of the Groom / Bride is such a section. She glanced over at me, asked me to turn, didn’t ask my size and glided off to a long rail of dozens of stunning evening dresses. She took off 3 dresses from different places, all with the wow factor, and said she felt these were the best start for me, covering one which was her first choice, one her second choice and one not suitable but needed to be seen.
Now it is important for me to mention at this junction, that all my jeans come from PEP. They are the best for me in every configuration, regular, skinny, stonewashed, dark blue - the whole shebang. And I am a wear sneakers 5 days a week girl. So when I discovered that the changing area was a small row of changing rooms, from which you walked onto a large wooden floored platform, in the middle of which was one of those round things you stand on with your dress with mirrors everywhere and perfect lighting, I unashamedly admit that I did give a little shriek, then peeped around the cubicle curtain and said to my little gang - “it’s just like a movie”. There was giggling, from me. A lot. The saleslady commented that it was lovely to see someone “so unashamedly excited”. A few steps down are elegant couches where your “style gang of friends” sit and look and comment and suggest. So for clarity - me on the circle. Renet and Maree on the couches.
I chose the first dress to try on because it was very me, and when the lady took it off the rack it was like she knew me personally - because in the two days before the shopping trip, Renet had seen something similar elsewhere and I liked it. Similar but not the same by any means in terms of fabric and finish. Bride & Co only make 2 dresses of every size in every style. This dress was whispering - “I’m the one”, before I even took it off the hanger. Swishy, soft, shimmery, elegant and a colour that I did not originally have in my wheelhouse. I put it on and I just knew. More giggling as I alighted from the changeroom. I turned to the mirror and I felt like a fairy princess. The cut, the shimmer, the colour - it was everything I wanted. My squad were delighted. We just all seemed to know. 209 photos were taken. Renet said that I had to try on the other two as we needed some context. Number 2 was a challenge. It only closed three quarter way and we realised that it was just “too heavy” for me. You needed more height to carry it off and no-one ever calls me tall. The saleslady said that she needed to show me that the heavier satin was not for me. Number 3 looked beautiful, until I had it on. We looked at each other and uttered the same description at the same time. So back into number 1 we went. I knew.
However my ever practical squad suggested we go to the store in the Mall which had the dress she had sent me the pic of. Now please understand. After Bride & Co, this was very different. The dress would not have been exclusive. We were handed it and I went into the changeroom. After 3 minutes of laughter I realised that whilst I had it on, I appeared to have gone wrong somewhere (it had layers and draping in all kinds of places) and was unable to lift my arms or turn my neck. Enter Renet to assist. She decided that the floppy bit on the left needed to be dragged over my head. It didn’t, and the end result had us shrieking so loudly that the shop assistant asked if she needed to come in and help. However my mind was made up. A quick stop at another store for a beautiful wrap, a celebratory lunch and back we went to the original dress. And lo and behold - winking to us from a nearby shelf was the most perfectly sized and chic bling handbag for the dress. I put it on again and Renet made a video just for Nic showing him his mom and talking just to him (he was working in the bush at a game lodge, with no signal) and then made a video call to Jess. Once we had all finished crying and Maree had 3028 photos, I parted with the cash (not a little, but it is magnificent) and we drove home, slighty hysterical about the day, crawling in traffic and still laughing about the bizarre dress in shop number two. I will never be able to thank the two of them enough for both going and giving opinions as Maree is about Jess’ age and added context. And for Renet who put her foot down around going to shop.
My shoes will be delivered this week. Nothing over the top. Just a super well priced sale online at a local store. If they don’t fit it won’t be a train smash. I will find others that are pretty and we all intend to wear sneakers when the dancing hots up. I also found beautiful earrings in a store, which I loved at once.
So finally. The mother of the groom only has to have her hair tinted and her nails done in the 3rd week of August and off I go to Pretoria the week before the wedding.
With joy and excitement, tears and a snip of the apron strings, the gratefulness that I am getting such a wonderful, talented and family orientated daughter in law and that Nic is marrying the lady of his dreams after 7 years together, we are counting down us two families. Two families where the parents and all the siblings love each other. I know my boy will be a phenomenal husband. With a phenomenal wife.
What more could a mom ask for.
Till soon
c’est la vie
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