What a Nightmare

Well I have to write about this, because I can't get it out of my head...and also to remind - ok convince - myself that it was just a dream. Last night, I had a horrifyingly terrible nightmare about...what else...my wedding day.

Que Wayne's World dream-sequence lead-in...

It's the day before the wedding and we're getting ready for the rehearsal. For some reason we (by 'we' I mean my sister, my mom and me) need to be to the rehearsal site super early, so I go for a quick run and head over there in my sweats - messy ponytail and all. We get to the ceremony site and find out that we are sharing the ceremony site with TWO other couples - on the DAY of the wedding. The first couple rehearses EVERYTHING - down to the last dance and the reception. Then the second couple begins, and we quickly realize that it's not a rehearsal - it's the ACTUAL ceremony; AND, I know the couple. The bride is a girl I went to high school with (a girl who is actually getting married this year also). Her bridesmaids start down the aisle in beautiful deep-blue to-the-knee dresses and I immediately panic as I remember: I DON'T HAVE BRIDESMAID DRESSES PICKED OUT YET. (This is actually something I'm struggling a LOT with). So, my bridesmaids will have to walk down the aisle in whatever they already own... Then, the bride walks down the aisle, looking beautiful, and she and her husband swap vows and I Dos. Everything goes off without a hitch; the bride looks amazingly confident, as if she new NOTHING was going to go wrong. Then, I realize it's my turn.

This is where, in my dream, I start to panic (not sure why I wasn't panicking when I realized my bridesmaids didn't have anything to wear...).

For some reason, the thought comes to me that my rehearsal, is not a rehearsal, but the actual wedding. My ceremony starts at 7pm and when I ask my sister what time it is, she looks at her watch and tells me, "5:40p.m." WHA!?! I am still wearing my running shorts and tank top, sporting a rat nest of a ponytail on the top of my head. I decide that I have no time to shower, but that I need to get my make-up started and I need to find someone to do my hair. I frantically ask my sister if her friend Jenny can come do my hair, as well as all of the bridesmaid's hair, and freak out as I sit and wait for her to arrive. (I have recently been scouring the internet in search of hair-do ideas, pondering extensions, and searching every resource I can to find the hair-do I'm dreaming of).

I sit and wait for Jenny to come, hoping and hoping that she'll make it before the ceremony, and decide it's time to put on my dress.

It dawns on me that I have not had my dress altered nor have I even looked at it since the day I bought it. (I've had this ongoing fear for the past 2 months or so that the dress I bought isn't going to fit me in a few months, when it comes time to actually get it altered - ...forget that I'm running a marathon 2 weeks before the wedding...). I am freaking, freaking, freaking out that it's not going to zip up. I slip it on, realizing that it's about 9 inches too long, and miraculously, it clasps at the top. We get the zipper all the way up and start to rejoice, when of course, the clasp comes undone. It comes undone over and over and over until I finally decide that I have to leave it and hope it stays long enough to get me down the aisle. The time comes to make the walk that I've seen a million times, in movies and on tv, and I'm standing there with little-to-no make-up on, a messy/sweaty ponytail atop my head, holding up a dress that is much too long and slowly falling off. I look up to see Mike standing perfectly dressed, awaiting the arrival of his bride-to-be, who now looks as though she's stepped out of a Tim Burton film.

That's where it ends. And I wake up. The very first thing that pops into my head? "Yes! My dress fits!" And then, "I should've just used a safety-pin to hold it up on the back". And finally, a dark cloud overcomes my thoughts as I realize how terrifying it was to feel completely helpless and unprepared for the most important and joyful day of my life.

Yikes. Luckily, it was about 5 minutes before my alarm was to go off, so I put the dream aside and got up for the day. Although I couldn't put it aside - it hasn't left me yet; and the first thing I'm going to do when I get home tonight? Try on my dress to make sure it still fits.