Ostrich in Time Saves Nine: I Bought an Ostrich Wedding Dress

In my previous post, I discussed my belief that one needn’t wait till engagement to go wedding dress shopping. My friend Jen pointed out that I’ve yet to recount my own experience with this unconventional timeline. So here goes!

We have a special bond.

A few years back, I worked in West Hollywood and used to stroll around the chichi boutiques of Robertson Blvd. during lunch break. During my window-shopping, I got the idea that I wanted an ostrich feather wedding dress.

These were the kind of aspirational window displays I passed on my walks.

It’s not that I have ever been particularly fixated on wedding fantasizing, but I’m an anticipator. In my estimation, if you carve out specific goals for yourself that will take some doing to achieve, it behooves you to begin the legwork as soon as you conceive of your goal.

This was the display at a Robertson Blvd. poster shop, not a perfumery. (As an inveterate fan of “old lady scents” and nearly noxious chemical notes, I love No. 5.)

Once I realized I wanted to live my life in L.A., I began casually scoping my future funeral plot. It helped that my old roommate was a touch macabre; currently, she’s “plot”-ing her Halloween 2014 wedding among the headstones at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Representative decor from my memento mori-laden first Hollywood apartment. (Orange Dr. — for the hue of the omnipresent jack-o-lanterns?)

“Stay in school, kids!” advises the studious disembodied cranium.

My roommate and I went to work at different times, so frequently I was left alone in our spookily decorated home. I formed strategic alliances with the more friendly characters.

Old roommate, modeling her possible future wedding dress for me.

Once I formulated my goal of ostrich feather wedding dress, I kept my eyes peeled. I love ostrich feathers. I think they have a great texture and a sophisticated look. More importantly, they put me in mind of my longest-running Hollywood job, where I toiled for 5 years. The company in question was founded by a man who had grown up on an ostrich farm, and the office had elaborate avian decor such as Fabergé-esque eggs. All the intranet passwords cleaved to a “flightless bird” theme (sadly, “f3@th3r 555” can no longer unlock the company network, as the scrappy House that Ostrich Built was bought by a media juggernaut a few years ago).

Scene from my sitcom-à-clef about working at the House that Ostrich Built.

One time, while having a networking lunch with a premium cable development executive, I started wearily rattling off the latest vicissitudes of my company’s pending ownership change versus the chaos of our scrappily ratite roots. Suddenly, she grabbed my hand and squealed, “This needs to be a TV show!” Now, the executive in question is an extremely nice person, and it’s her job to be open and on the hunt for promising properties. But she also brought one of the buzziest comedies of the day to the air, so her words carried esteem-boosting heft. To this day I treat her passing encouragement as a prophecy that merely hasn’t had the chance to come true yet.

Thus, one of my many mascots (violets, orange blossoms, etc.) is the ostrich.