“Well, I’ll try to fix it, but with the wedding so close, I can’t make any promises. I have other clients waiting for their orders, too, Jess.”
Her words rang loud and clear in my head as I drove away from her office. And then it hit me — this wasn’t an accident.
I recalled the way she spoke to me, and the tone in her voice. There was no remorse in her mistake. There was no mix-up in measurements.
There was no weight gain with me. This was deliberate, and Sarah had made the dress too small on purpose. “I don’t know what to do,” I told Michael when he got home that evening.
“Show me the dress?” he asked, pouring himself a glass of water. “What! No!” I exclaimed.
“The dress may be a mess, but it’s bad luck for you to see!”
“Look, why don’t you take the dress to Mrs. Lawson? She’s my mom’s friend, and she does all her alterations.
She’s making Mom’s dress for the wedding, too.”
So, I gathered the awful dress and went to Mrs. Lawson, who was a retired seamstress with a reputation for miracles. “Oh, honey,” she said when I walked in.
“Michael phoned me and told me all about the mess. But I’ve seen the worst and made it a hundred times better.”
“This might be tricky, though,” I said, showing her the dress. “Honey, I’ve seen it all, trust me.
Let’s make this work,” she chuckled. Together, we transformed the original design into something completely new. A chic, short, cocktail-style dress that was bold, unconventional, and a bit edgy for a wedding.
But it was absolutely stunning. It was everything Sarah’s dress wasn’t: fun, flirty, and perfectly me. When it was time to walk down the aisle, my heart raced.
I stood in the bridal suite of the wedding venue and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked beautiful. I felt beautiful.
As my dad walked into the room to get me, his jaw dropped. “My darling,” he said. “You look incredible!
Wow!”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “I know it’s not what we all envisioned me wearing for my wedding, but it’s been the best surprise. I feel like a bride.”
“That’s the only thing that matters, darling,” he said.
Soon, my entrance music began, and goosebumps appeared all over my body as a classical version of a Lana Del Rey song took over the room. Heads turned. And I felt the buzz of admiration follow me as people watched me walk in.
I knew that my dress was a hit. When I got closer to Michael, his eyes widened, and his smile took over his face. I knew then that the man I was about to marry fell in love with me all over again.
But before I took my place next to Michael, I turned to Sarah, wanting to see her expression first. Her face was priceless: she was pale and shocked. I knew she had expected to see me in tears, humiliated by her sabotage and wearing that horrible dress she had designed.
Instead, I was glowing, smiling from ear to ear. The ceremony went off without a hitch, Michael’s vows leaving me in tears and my heart full of love for the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. But then came the reception.
Michael and I were mingling with our guests when Sarah cornered me. “Jess, what happened to the dress? Where’s my original design?
Why did you change it?” she asked, trying to hide her confusion. I grinned. “Oh, I thought I’d take your design and make it better!
Remember, you weren’t even sure that you could do anything about it. And I was bursting out of it because it was at least two sizes too small.”
“So, that’s it? You just threw away my hard work?” she gasped.
“That’s low!”
“No, Sarah, your work is the foundation of this dress. It’s just a hundred times better because the woman who fixed it wanted me to look and feel beautiful on my wedding day.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Around us, guests kept complimenting my dress, calling it unique and stunning.
Sarah had no choice but to stand there and listen. “Come on, love,” Michael called to me. “Let’s do our first dance so that I can really get into the buffet after!
The roast beef is to die for!”
“I’m coming,” I smiled, finally happy. What would you have done? If you enjoyed this story, here’s another one for you:
Just days before her wedding, Leah discovers that her grandmother didn’t have a wedding.
Unable to sleep due to her grandmother having missed her opportunity, Leah wants her grandparents to have their moment and walk down the aisle. Instead of it playing out as Leah plans, she has to deal with a grandmother in a wedding dress, an embarrassed grandfather, and livid family members. Did she ruin her own wedding just to give her grandmother a memory?
“Tell me about your wedding, Gran,” I asked, rocking back and forth on the porch swing. The night was quiet, and we were a week away from my wedding. All I wanted to do was soak up the time I had left with my grandmother because once we were married, Nate and I would be moving away.
“Oh, honey, there wasn’t really a wedding. Your grandfather always promised, but it never happened,” she smiled, her eyes distant. “Never?” I asked, frowning.
My grandmother shook her head. “No. He didn’t even propose, Leah,” she said.
“He always said that we’d get around to it eventually, but life just kept getting in the way. We raised our kids, took care of the house, and before I knew it, decades had passed.”
“But you are married, right?” I asked, trying to understand why my grandmother’s words felt like such a blow to me. “Married, yes.
Your grandfather took me down to the courthouse, and we signed away our single lives. He didn’t ask me; he just said that it was going to happen. And it did.”
My heart ached for her.
“But you wanted one, right? A wedding, I mean,” I pressed. Her smile was wistful.
“I did, but I let go of that dream a long time ago. Now, come on, I’ll make you some hot chocolate before you leave.”
