Dress stress

Not normally one to fixate on one issue to the exclusion of all others, or obsess about something superficial for weeks on end, the pressure of picking a wedding dress has come as something of a surprise to me.

I didn't expect to stress about such a (relatively) unimportant life choice so much but it turns out that I am, after all, a complete girl! Of all the decisions in life we have to make, choosing a wedding dress may not be up there with selecting a partner, buying a house or deciding on a career path but it is after all something you have to live with forever. It lives on in photographs and will forever become part of your image of yourself - the pressure heaped on this particular garment is huge.

But fortunately I've found it. Yes, after visiting numerous boutiques, trying on more than 50 dresses and agonising over terrible mobile phone pictures of them all it turned out to be easy. Going back to three of the best shops and showing the top six dresses to my mum and mother-in-law-to-be turned out to narrow it down better and faster than I could ever have hoped. Everyone said I would "know it was the one" when I saw it but as I hadn't the first time around I was worried I really wouldn't.

How wrong I was. Of the six, one simply stood out and it couldn't have been more obvious had it sprouted legs and tapped me on the shoulder. I have no qualms about the dresses I ultimately rejected, I'm not mooning over them or wondering if I've made the right choice, and those mobile phone pictures can be deleted without a care. I've chosen the dress I want to marry my Douglas in - and I couldn't be more relieved! Just nine months until I can share it with you all...