Fancy

This flash fiction piece was written as a story companion to the day 7 drawing prompt Fancy from the 2020 Inktober prompt list. Click here to see the drawing.

The thing no one tells you about big, fancy wedding dresses is how hot and sweaty they make you once you’re wearing them.

When you're a little girl and you dream about being a princess bride with all the twirling around and curtseying and riding in the horse drawn carriage, it doesn’t occur to you to consider the practicalities of the thing. Tying your mother’s beach towel around your waist while you saunter down the hallway won’t tell you what you need to know about crinoline and boning in your bustier and how tulle doesn’t breathe, not even a little bit.

So, here I sit, in the Sunday school room at the back of the St. Mark’s Episcopal, hoop skirt and petticoats hiked up around my waist, legs splayed in front of an oscillating fan. Frankly, this is not the kind of spread eagle I’d hoped to be doing on my wedding day. But at least I’m not dripping sweat any more.

I don’t know what made me think the full face of make-up I put on at 8:00 a.m. would last until 5:00 that night, but, again, I didn’t expect to be sweating so much.

My mom cracks open the door and sticks just her head through. Everyone else has been banned from this area of the cathedral, given that I don’t particularly want to accidentally show off my girdle to any stray groomsmen.

“Hey sweetie! I asked the priest and he said they’ll turn the air conditioning down as far they can.”

“Thanks, mom.”

“Everything else alright? You need anything?”

“I’d kill for a beer,” I mumble.

“I’m sorry, what?”

I chuckle to myself, knowing she can’t hear me over the fan. “Nothing. What time is it?”

“It’s 4:15 and they’ve started seating guests. Not long to wait!” She puts up both of her fists and shakes them while emitting some kind of girlish squeal. “You’ll be Mrs. Patterson before you know it!”

I give her my best plastic smile and she backs out of the room while blowing me a kiss. My smile falls as soon as the door shuts.

Something’s missing, but I can’t tell what. I keep thinking about myself as that little girl, practicing my wedding day in my room. Throwing the bouquet over my shoulder and waving to my family and laughing with joy.

I may never have thought about how sweaty I’d be on my wedding day, but I certainly thought about how happy I’d be. I expected to be deliriously, incandescently happy. I expected to be walking around without feeling my feet even touch the ground. But I keep thinking of Rob’s face, and just feeling … flat.

Earlier this month, I’d gone through the same thing, alone in my girlhood room on the third floor of my parent’s gigantic house. Once all the activity of the day wore off, like the excitement of planning flowers and processions, and meeting with the wedding planner to decide chicken or fish, I would sit in my room left with just my thoughts. I kept picturing that moment when I would walk down the aisle, when I would say the words that would officially make me, “Mrs. Patterson,” for life … presumably. When he proposed, I was giddy at the idea, more than excited to say, ‘I do,’ but eight months later, the feeling was completely gone.

That’s when I had to face the truth: I’m not excited to walk down the aisle. But why?

I love him, more than anyone I’ve ever loved in my life. I know I want to marry him. Well … at least I know I want to get married. I’m ready to start my life, my home, a family. And I love the idea of having Rob there when I go to sleep and when I wake up with nightmares, and having someone to put my arms around in the middle of the night.

In the weeks leading up to the wedding when I realized I wasn’t excited, I would just push it to the back of my mind. I wasn’t going to walk away from the promise of all that I dreamed of my entire life.

But it kept coming back, making me wonder, what’s missing? I think about the last time we saw each other, yesterday after the rehearsal dinner. I expected a romantic departure, full of I love you's, and, I’ll miss you's, and maybe a steamy kiss. But when I tried to kiss him and run my hands up and down his back, he went to peck my cheek. Then he told me he ate too much at dinner, gave me a side hug, and said good night.

That was the first time I thought about calling it off. Then my mom came around the corner with my bridesmaids and started calling me Mrs. Patterson, and future wifey, and talking about what time the cake would be delivered the next day.

I couldn’t tell them it had all been for nothing. And I couldn’t let go of the idea of getting married.

It must just be like the wedding dress, right?. It must just be another one of the things they don’t tell you when you’re a little girl, that being lovestruck is just what they put in movies and stories to sell them to impressionable women desperate for romance. Just because I wasn’t walking around, unable to stop smiling at the idea of marrying Rob, just because I didn’t sit up at night thinking about how wonderful he is and how I can’t wait to be walking down the aisle toward him … that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.

Anyway, it’s not like I could call it off now, what with him standing at the altar upstairs, and the cathedral filled with 200 people and a cake sitting in the fellowship hall ready to be dished out.

A knock on the door.

“Ten minutes ‘till we get into place!” The wedding planner’s overly cheery voice rings out.

I start rearranging my skirts so they hang properly, and check myself in the mirror. Everything looks right—fancy hair, fancy dress, fancy face—but it doesn’t feel right. I shrug it off.

Whatever it is that doesn’t feel right is probably just because planning a wedding is so busy and chaotic. Once that fades away, I’ll be happy. Maybe it’s normal not to feel excited until after the vows. That missing feeling probably just happens later. That must be what it is. It’ll come later.

Right?