Say yes to yourself!

So, I make no secret that I watch more television than I should, but I like to think that most of the time, I'm not watching the worst of the trash that is available. I'm sure that there are plenty of 16-year-olds who didn't know they were pregnant, and are also mediums, and also housewives  that I am totally missing out on, but I gotta draw a line somewhere.

One of my favorite completely mindless shows--the ones I watch when I just need a little background noise--is TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress." I don't know for sure why it sucks me in; perhaps it's that little place in every girl's heart that dreams about her wedding, and imagines the perfect princess gown that she will wear one day. Seventeen years after my own wedding, that place never really shut down.

The premise of the show is pretty obvious--brides agree to have their wedding gown shopping experience filmed, and drama almost always ensues. The bride usually arrives with a group of people--sometimes large, sometimes small--that will help her choose the perfect dress for her perfect day. Sometimes there are individuals in the group who seem dead set on sabotaging the experience, while other times, the bride does a pretty decent job of sabotaging herself.

I watched a few episodes of the Atlanta version yesterday, and it started me thinking that choosing the perfect wedding dress is a pretty good metaphor for life. Amongst the episodes I watched yesterday, three women stood out. They all arrived at Bridals by Lori, all in hopes of finding their perfect gowns. One was a member of a roller derby team, another a reporter, and a third a former pageant contestant.

Each of these women had pretty well defined images, and each brought friends and family who said they wanted to help the brides find that "wow" dress that best fit the image of who they were. And that's where all the drama ensued. As you can imagine, people's images of you can be pretty skewed.

The group with the roller derby bride could only see her as the strong, athletic type, and poo-pooed every dress choice she modeled, including the one she loved. This bride was a bigger girl. I know what it's like to go dress shopping and feel like nothing looks good on me. I know what it's like to see every bump and bulge, and forget that those imperfections are why the entire spandex industry is such an outrageous success. It was quite a feat for her to overcome her own negative self-talk and see herself as a beautiful bride. It was painful to watch her friends, and even her dad give her the thumbs down at every turn. When you're poised to walk down the aisle, the last thing you want is for everyone to be thinking you can't be bridal.

The reporter had a completely bizarre approach to dress shopping--she actually chose not to choose at all. She brought in an entourage of friends and family, and was insistent that they would do a better job of choosing her dress for her. She declared herself "bankrupt of style." Let's be honest, no woman is actually devoid of style. We all choose a style, whether or not it's a successful style is a completely different issue. But as Geddy Lee sings "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." By choosing not to truly participate in the process, this bride ended up leaving the bridal shop feeling even more ambivalent than she had when she walked in. The sad thing is that such a successful individual didn't have enough faith in her own strength of choice to see herself as someone worthy of choosing. You can't choose who you are by consensus, and selecting a wedding dress is very much about deciding who you are--or at least who you want to be for one day.

And that leaves us with our pageant bride. Her mom wasn't able to see her daughter as being beautiful, unless she was wearing a "sparkle baby" gown, but after a childhood of pageantry, the bride wanted to be seen as beautiful without all the flash. At the same time, her "bridesman" wanted to see her in something very "fashion forward." I'm not going to lie, I don't even know what "fashion forward" means. Pageant bride starts out trying to please them both by trying on dresses that fit the image they have of her. But the discomfort of seeing herself in dresses that don't fit the way she sees herself pushes her to find her own voice.

After being brought to tears, or nearly so, by their entourages, derby girl and pageant girl both find their perfect dresses, but only after Lori's associates "jack them up" (add veil and accessories), and the whole picture comes into focus. It feels like a triumph when they choose themselves over the loud, and obnoxious voices of their detractors. And almost magically, when these women let their own voices be heard, everyone else was able to see them more clearly.

It's still a pretty good picture. 

I think I watch these shows because I made the mistake that the narrator of this show often talks about--tunnel vision. When I was getting married, I had a very certain dress in mind, and did not even consider the possibility that there might be another dress out there for me. I never had the dress shopping experience. As I think about the entourage of people I might have brought with me, I think maybe I'm better off. I don't even want to fully imagine the drama that might have ensued with my dress-shopping detractors. And as it happens, a certain duchess recently took a page out of my wedding album and wore a dress with quite a few similarities to mine--a tiny royal feather in my DIY veil.

There are plenty of times besides picking out a wedding dress where people try to dress us down--picking at the people we are. Often, we know what is right for ourselves, and we believe we know the right choices to make, and the right actions to take. There are plenty of instances within our jobs where tasks can be done in different ways, and the results are the same. Those are the gray zones. Other times, there really is only one way to choose to do the right thing. Those are the black tie and white gown moments in life. Those are the moments in which our choices really matter, and they define who we are to others, but more importantly to ourselves.

There are days I want to be more than I am, and I forget to embrace my own advice to "ride my own ride." At the end of each day, the choices other people make define them, and I don't have to live with those choices. I do have to live with my own. I'm not "just" anything. No matter what our jobs or positions, no one is "just" anything.

Choosing a wedding dress is a moment,  in which we can choose to listen to all the other voices and noise about who people think we are, or a moment in which we can choose to shut out all of that screaming and listen for our own voices. It is true that a few of those voices will be with us for the long term, but just like in life and work, one voice that will be with us forever.
there is only

Firework--Katy Perry

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