The search is over!

This weekend was ER's sister's wedding. Danielle, her fiance and another friend were supposed to come into town Saturday afternoon just a bit before the wedding and stay Saturday night with me. I had plans to be productive Friday night and Saturday morning. I was going to go dress shopping for my Florida dress to make sure the perfect one wasn't waiting for me in a store before I went through the torture of ordering online again.

Danielle called me Thursday night to tell me they'd decided to come Friday night instead so they could sleep in Saturday morning. That meant all my plans of being productive would be put off. I couldn't exactly leave them all here while I went to the gym and ran errands.

Saturday morning, the guys wanted to go to the electronics store, so Danielle and I took that time to go to the mall. I returned my let-down dress to Macy's. While we were there, Danielle and I looked at the white dresses in the store. We found a couple of nice ones, but they either weren't what we were looking for, or they didn't have my size. We did manage to find a decent dress in the juniors department. It fit well, and it was only $54. I wondered if I should go ahead and buy it just in case. It would definitely work for the wedding, but it just wasn't quite bridal, and something about buying a wedding dress for $54 in the Macy's juniors department wasn't quite what I had in mind.

We checked other stores -- JCPenney, The Limited, even Forever XXI. We had been to every store I thought might have a nice white dress, and then some. We headed toward Dillards. It was the last store left. We walked right into the special occasion dress area. There were a couple of white dresses that were really nice. One wasn't in my size, but they did have it one size larger. I figured I could try it on and get a basic idea, and if I liked it, I could find it at another store.

When a Dillards women's department lady asked me for the second time if I was ready to try the dresses on, I let her take them from me, and Danielle and I followed her to the dressing room. There was a rack of red dresses hanging just to the right of the door. At the back, behind all that red, was a bit of white peeking out. I pulled the dresses forward to make sure I hadn't missed a good white dress. I was glad to see that the dress was just like the one I was going to try even that was one size too big. This dress, though, was in my size.

I told Danielle what I'd found, and then I looked at the top of the hanger to see there was a piece of paper on it. "Oh no!" I said. "It's on hold!"

"No it's not," the Dillards associate said to me.

Another women's department came up behind her. "This dress is on hold," she said. "It's my hold."

The women proceeded to argue heatedly about it. "For three days this dress has been here. She's not coming for it," the first woman said. She ripped the paper from the hanger and wadded it up while the second associate still protested. The first one thrust the dress at me. "Try it on. It's not on hold."

The second woman's gaze followed the dress into my hands, and I could tell she wasn't going to let the argument go. It was awkward for Danielle and me, and I felt somehow in the middle now that I was the one holding the dress.

"Tell you what," I said. "I'm just going to try this dress on since it's the right size. I won't buy it. If I like it, I'll order it." I smiled at the woman to try to reassure her, and the women left us, still arguing about the hold.

As I was undressing and getting ready to put the dress on, the first associate came back into the dressing room. "The dress is not on hold. There was a misunderstanding. She didn't realize it had been on hold so long. We called and took care of it. It's not on hold anymore." She apologized for what had happened in front of us. Danielle and I told her it was fine, eager to end the awkwardness.

I stepped into the dress and started to zip it up. "This might be it!" I thought to myself. I slipped my head through the braided strap and tied it in the back. It was perfect.

"Danielle, I think I'm going to buy this dress!" I said as I came out of the dressing room. She looked at me and gasped, and her jaw dropped. "Oh my gosh that's it!" she said. "You've even got that bridal glow!"

Just to be sure, I tried on the other dress. It was no comparison. I told Danielle I needed to put on the first dress one more time. As I stood in front of the mirror in the dress, I knew I was going to get it. I heard Josh Groban playing over the speakers in the store. I love Josh Groban, so I took it as one more sign that it was the perfect dress.

As if that wasn't enough, the first sales associate came into the dressing rooms with another shopper. They both stopped and gasped as they looked at me. "You're so tiny!" the shopper exclaimed. "And you must work out -- your arms are so toned!"

Needless to say, I bought the dress! Just as Danielle and I were walking away from the register, the second Dillards associate went up to the register. "Did she buy it?" she asked. The first associate broke the news. I smiled nervously, and Danielle and I picked up our pace out of the store.

I thought it was perfect that Danielle was the one with me when I found it, since she was there with me when K proposed! (I just had to throw it on quickly to get pictures, since we were running late on getting ready for ER's sister's wedding. It looks much better in person, and the braid down the back will be straight when I don't throw it on so quickly. Trust me on that. I was kind of disappointed when I saw the full-length picture, but the dress looks totally gorgeous in person.)