Jessi Klein - The Dress

 

Immediately after I got engaged, every woman I know started asking me, "What are you going to do about a wedding dress? What kind of wedding dress are you going to wear?" And I would always say the same thing, which was, "Oh, I'm not going to wear a wedding dress." As I would watch their heads explode, I would feel this wave of self-satisfaction washing over me. [audience laughter] It was kind of similar to the smug feeling I have when I tell people that I don't personally find Brad Pitt attractive. [audience laughter] I understand why you, but he's just not my thing. [audience chuckles] Equally shocking to humans. 

 

But the truth is, genuinely, I've never really related to wedding dresses like the Cinderella-ness of them, the poof-ness of them. I've always thought they look kind of cheesy, and I've just never related to that traditional femininity. You know what I mean? Like, even though I am a straight woman, I've never been able to really plug into the kinds of things that straight women are supposed to do, like drink Diet Coke and do ballet and laugh and laugh. [audience laughter] Just be in a good mood or whatever. [audience laughter] 

 

And also, as a feminist, I've never really liked what I perceive wedding dresses to stand for. It always seems to me these gowns are designed to eliminate your individuality and just level everyone into this universal symbol of femaleness, like you know that faceless woman in the triangle dress on the door of every ladies’ room in America, [audience chuckles] I feel that's what a lot of people look like in wedding dresses, and I didn't want to be in a triangle dress. [audience chuckles] 

 

So, in reality, my plan was like, I’ll go to a department store and I’ll just spend a little more than I normally would on just a pretty dress, and that's going to be what I do. What I was not expecting was how many of my friends actively wanted to take me wedding dress shopping, really wanted to do it. And not even just my close friends, like acquaintances. Like people I didn't know well, started to feel maybe this is one of those experiences that you're supposed to have just so you can say you had it.

 

Like, when I dated a guy who had a motorcycle [chuckles]. I just was like, I have to do this. Although the side note to that is I didn't find out until after I slept with him that he had only borrowed the motorcycle. [audience laughter] So, that should probably have been a foreshadowing to how this was going to go. Whatever, I have to do it just to say I did it. And so, I let my friends make an appointment for me at Lovely Bridal. That's what it's called. And it's this bridal boutique in the West Village. It's very girly. Obviously, it's a bridal boutique. They all are. It's twee chandeliers. 

 

I go with my friends and I'm trying on dresses. I didn't know that there's a very specific way that this goes, which is that someone, a sales lady, has to help you into the dress, because they're very complicated and big. And so, what that means is that there's a stranger in a dressing room with me, seeing me naked except for a strapless bra and heels, which they make you bring. And for me, those things are paired with the most raggedy pair of Gap underwear, [audience chuckles] because I like to wear my underwear until it's ratty, an old pirate flag. [audience laughter] So, it's not a good look and you have to check your dignity at the door.

 

And then, once you're in a dress, and it's always either super too big or super too small, they use an industrial clip, like clip it to you, and then you shuffle out into the room and you stand on a pedestal [audience chuckles] and your friends look at you. Me and my friends would engage in a verbal tennis match that was the same for every dress. But towards the end of my hour-long appointment, I do try on this one dress that feels a little different. It's this cool art deco column of a dress, sparkly beads or whatever. It's a little rock and roll. It looks like something Kate Moss would do a ton of coke [chuckles] in and then pass out on a bed at the Ritz. [audience laughter] 

 

I'm looking in the mirror and I'm, “I have to really think, do I want to look like a coked-up Kate Moss on my wedding day?” And a very large part of me was like, “Yeah, [audience laughter] probably.” Anyway, I didn't buy that dress, but I did feel something stirring for the first time, which was for the first time I was like, “Maybe there is value in wearing a wedding dress the day I get married. Maybe there is some deeper meaning to just yielding to this hyper feminine version of myself for just literally a day, just so I can check the box and move on with my life.” So, anyway, I decided like, “Okay, I'm going to do that.”

 

And the women at Lovely Bridal remind me that I have to buy the dress or whatever dress I get, I have to get six months in advance of my wedding day, because it has to be made, it has to be altered, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, “I got this. It's no big deal. It's March, my wedding is in November, I have plenty of time, I'm fine.” I also decide I'm not going to bring my girlfriends to go shopping with me anymore, because I am not a baby. I am a feminist [chuckles] grown up. 

 

And so, a few weeks later, I go to this other bridal boutique and I try in a bunch of stuff. It's not that great. And then, towards the end, I see a dress in the back of the store, stuffed in the corner. It's this vintage off white dress, and it's multi-tiered on the bottom, kind of looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of dresses. [audience chuckles] And that appeals to me. So, I put it on. I guess the best way to describe it, is that it looks like something a saloon owner from the old west would wear. [audience laughter] I'm like, “I kind of love this.” 

 

I'm looking in the mirror, and I don't know, it's whimsical and bohemian. It feels like me, but it is a wedding dress. And I'm like, “I think I'm done here.” I take a picture of myself in the dress. And just to make sure I'm not crazy. I text the photo to my friend Jenny and I just wait for her permission to get the dress and be done. But I don't get that. What I get instead is like, I've texted her the photo and then she texts back. But I get those three dots that you see on an iPhone when someone's texting you back, and they're stopping, and starting a lot [audience laughter] in that way [chuckles] that three dots stop and start on an iPhone when someone has something deeply unpleasant to tell you and is really struggling. [audience laughter] 

 

When her text finally comes through, her text is, "Interesting dress. Happy to keep shopping with you." [audience laughter] And I was like, “Oh, all right. Well, obviously Jenny doesn't like the dress, but whatever, it's one person.” So, I text the photo to all my friends, and I just get back a wave of three dots. [audience chuckles] Everyone's three dotting it, and all the three dots are followed by very tepid comments. 

 

It's weird. I don't understand why people aren't more enthusiastic about the dress, but everyone's being polite and no one's being straightforward, and I'm like, “All right, well, still no big deal.” Like, “Whatever, here's what I'll do. I'll shop for two more weeks. I'll see if I can beat it. And if I can't, I'm just going to buy the Charlie Brown dress. I don't care that much about this. I can't invest that much time. I'm a very busy feminist.” [audience laughter]

 

But then my next stop is at Saks. Something bad happens at Saks, where I go and my saleswoman is a slightly older woman. I think her name is Barbara. She's from New Jersey. She reminds me of my Jewish aunt. She's very sweet. I feel like 10 minutes into my appointment, we're kind of best buds. She likes me and I like her. I'm trying stuff on, and again, I never feel comfortable. And finally, I'm like, “You know, I tried on this other dress at this other shop, and I'd like something that's like this. And I have a photo.” She's like, "Oh, honey, show me the photo." I show her the photo and her whole demeanor [chuckles] changes. [audience chuckles] She scowls and she literally says, she goes, "You look pregnant in this dress. This is a maternity dress." [audience laughter] 

 

And I was like, “What?” This is the moment that my wedding dress search stopped being about a dress and became an existential crisis of faith in myself where I was like, “Why can't I do this? What is wrong with me as a woman that I can't look feminine for literally not even a whole day?” It's really five hours of my whole life, and I feel like a failure as a woman. I really start to think like, maybe I'm also-- Like, “Is this the first time I fail my fiancé Mike? Am I going to be a failure as a wife?”

 

Quick side note about Mike. He'd been putting off buying a suit, right? He was not getting it together, and I'm finally like, “Babe, this process takes way longer than you think it will. [audience chuckles] You need to get on this.” And he's like “All right.” [audience laughter] And so, one Saturday, he's like, Let's go.” We go to one store, and he tries one suit, [audience chuckles] and it looks awesome on him, and he buys it. [audience laughter] And he doesn't cry, and no one told him he looked pregnant. [audience laughter] 

 

I really love my husband a lot, but that day, I was like, “I hate you.” [audience chuckles] Because for me, the search is just continuing and continuing, and looking for a wedding dress starts to become literally another whole job. And the whole time, though, I'm thinking about the Charlie Brown dress. It's haunting me like an old lover. And finally, it's Memorial Day weekend. I see the Charlie Brown dress is online. It's on sale just for this weekend. I call my friend Zubaydah, and she comes to my house, and I basically, I beg for her permission to buy the dress to put me out of my misery, so I can be done. I'm like Old Yeller and I'm like, “Put me down. I'm done.” [audience chuckles] 

 

And she's like, "Let's look at the photo of you again." We look at the photo, and she's like, "You know what? You look super pretty. Just buy the dress." And I'm like, "Are you sure?" She's like, "Yes, I'm sure." I go, "Are you sure?" She's like, "I'm so sure." I have my finger on the mouse of my computer. I'm about to click purchase, and she's like, "Wait." [audience chuckles] And she goes, "I feel the tiers of the dress hit you at a weird angle." I look at her face and there's desperation in her eyes. I will just say this about her. 

 

She is my oldest friend. We've known each other since we were 11. We went to junior high school together. She knew me when I wore a night brace. I knew her when she wore suspenders every day. [audience chuckles] I know she loves me and would not tell me something if it wasn't true. And this is how I find myself the next day, trudging in 98-degree heat to the snootiest department store in New York City, Bergdorf Goodman. I have to tell you, I know for a fact that at this point, I had tried on over one hundred wedding dresses. I know this, because I kept count. Literally, I think 101. 

 

I'm going to Bergdorf Goodman. I'm a little intimidated, because it's a very snooty store. I've never been there, and I'm like, “Is this one of those places that doesn't let Jews in?” [audience laughter] But they do. There were tons there. I was not the only one. [audience laughter] I was crawling with them. But anyway, I'm walking through Bergdorf Goodman. I'm in a haze. I look like Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, [audience laughter] just taking it all in through my dead eyes. [audience laughter] And then, I see, at the end of this hall, clouds part, I see the dress. I see this little white, beaded, A-line cocktail Audrey Hepburn dress. It's a Valentino dress. It's the dress of my dreams. It's simple and perfect. 

 

I run towards it, I grab it, my size, I run into the dressing room, I put it on. Perfect. I love it. I don't exactly look like Audrey Hepburn. I look like Audrey Hepburn if she just escaped from a fire. [audience laughter] But I'm like, “Good enough. I can work with this. That's a look. I'm doing it. I'm done. I'm done. I did it. I did it. I'm a woman. I bought a wedding dress.” I just quickly look at the price tag, and it costs $10,000. [audience laughter] I suddenly hear this very high-pitched foreign voice go, "Just do it." [audience laughter] I look around and I'm like, “Who's that?” It was me. That was my own voice in my head. [audience laughter] 

 

I start to engage in this insane inner monologue with myself where I'm just like, “Okay, here's the plan. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to put this on your credit card, and you're never going to tell a living soul how much it costs or where you got it. You will lie to everyone, including your own husband, about the origin of the dress. And that's totally cool. It's fine. You'll just lie. You'll be a liar, and you'll just have this dress.” [audience chuckles] 

 

And after a minute or two of this, I realized this is the kind of narcissistic reasoning that married men recite to themselves when they're buying an escort on their Amex, [audience chuckles] where just any reason is justification like, “My wife makes me do laundry, so I had to do this. She trapped me.” [audience laughter] I realized I don't want to think about this like that. I put the dress back on the rack, and I go home, and I call my friend Becky, and I start to sob.

 

I'm crying. I'm crying, because I've lost my way. I'm like, “I've lost my bearings. I've become somebody I don't recognize. I've become the worst cliché, the cliché I feared at the very beginning of this.” Becky calms me down, and she's like, "This happens to everyone. It's okay. And just be gentle with yourself. Whatever you feel good in, just buy it. And that's how people will see you. So, get the Charlie Brown dress if that's what you feel pretty in." And somehow, she got through. Aye.

 

She gets through, and I hang up with her, and I pick up the phone, and I call the Charlie Brown dress store, and I order the dress, and then I have the biggest glass of wine, because I just threw this hundred-pound weight off of my chest. I literally feel like Chief at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [audience chuckles] when he takes the concrete sink and lugs it through the window and then just runs. And I was like, “That's how free I felt.” 

 

So, at the end of my wedding night, I'm so happy, I'm so drunk, I'm in my Charlie Brown dress. I've had the best time. I actually bought a $25 cheapo dress to dance in, and I change into it, and I take the Charlie Brown dress, and I throw it on the ground. I don't even think about it. It's like, whatever. I don't think about it till the next day when I see that my wedding planner has very carefully put it back in the garment bag that I brought it in and zipped it up. 

 

And that bag is now at the back of my closet in my house. I've only peeked at it once. My husband Mike says I should get it professionally cleaned, because it's very dirty. [chuckles] The hem is black, and there's a lot of wine all over it. [audience laughter] But I don't think I'm going to get it cleaned, because it actually means more to me in this disheveled, wriggled-off state. It is like that translucent, wrinkled skin that a snake sheds off once it's been outgrown. Thank you, guys, so much.