YES!!!!

Brooklyn, circa a lifetime ago

Years ago, I said "no" to wedding dress shopping at Kleinfeld's, back when it was still the venerable old shop on a street corner in Brooklyn. My mom had little interest in participating in my "marrying out" -- both in terms of religion and geography, and I had even less interest in having an audience while I stuffed my less than svelte body into Cinderella style gowns that had never really been the stuff of my dreams.

If I ever had any regrets, I've long gotten over them. My guess is it wouldn't have been all that much fun anyway. Certainly not as much fun as watching my own daughter try on wedding gowns yesterday, at the Kleinfeld's of Say Yes to the Dress television fame, the Kleinfeld's that eventually outgrew its gritty Brooklyn britches and settled into a glitzier Manhattan address.

Reality can often suck compared to fantasy, but the reality of wedding dress shopping at Kleinfeld's with my daughter was at least as good, if not better, than what reality television had led me to expect. The website had warned against an entourage larger than three, and we were a little nervous about showing up as a pack of five (plus the bride). As it turns out, we were not the only ones bucking the rules, which were apparently more soft plea than hard and fast. The lobby was abuzz with small crowds, all at least fifteen minutes early for the first appointment of the day.

I admit I was a bit starstruck as the consultants appeared, one by one, the ladies I had gotten to know so well from many guilty hours spent binge watching Say Yes. Nobody seemed shocked by the oversized entourages, and the greetings were the same as they were on television: Where's my bride? Who did you bring with you? My daughter picked her sister to head back with her for the initial chit chat -- tell me about the groom, how did you meet, where will the wedding be -- while grandma, future mother-in-law, honorary other mom, and I sat in our assigned chairs and gazed at the glittering gowns and chatted with the other spectators.

We voted on each others' daughters, we nudged brides-to-be we had never met toward our own preferences. We shared joy and did the best we could, all of us, to bury any sorrows we brought with us. It was a morning of optimism and magic, more than we could have imagined. I've launched all of my children many times, and have repeatedly endured the odd combination of thrill and abject fear. I thrill for them and fear from them every day. That's just how it goes.

But tough feminist independent me, the chubby and insecure girl who passed up a lot of the ritual all those years ago, felt nothing but joy yesterday. I want everything for all my children, but yesterday, all I wanted -- and what I got -- was Cinderella.