Similar to the tale of the Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and the Bride (BATB) will examine a relationship fraught with mistrust, deception, fear, and hopefully, a happy ending.  BeautyXposé will follow BATB as she traverses the perilous landscape of wedding-day beauty leading up to her September nuptials.  Have a question for BATB?  A topic you’d like her to cover?  A conspiracy you’ve uncovered in the Wedding Industrial Complex (WIC) you’d like exposed?  Email her at: beautyandthebride@beautyxpose.com.

So for the past few weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time with future mother-in-law shopping with her for a dress for the wedding.  We’ve been to an obscene number of bridal shops, department stores, and shady websites.  Finally last week we found THE dress.  I may have been more excited about it than finding my own, if only because the process was exponentially longer than my own.

After the last trip, my future mother-in-law, with her sister and mine in tow, wanted to make one last shopping stop to JCPenney to look for a few summer dresses on crazy sale.  Because I have difficulty saying no to the woman who birthed my fiancé, and because I like a good deal as much as the next girl, I acquiesced.  Besides, it’d be a quick trip.  I had hockey practice to get to after all.

The trip to JC Penney was a rousing success — at least for me.  While my future mother-in-law didn’t find anything, I found a dress for my bridal shower, my rehearsal dinner (and getting my marriage license; more on that later) and a wedding I’m attending this summer.  They’re fabulous.  They’re a little cheeky, a lot flattering, and I got all three for $110.  I brought them home and immediately modeled them for my fiancé in the living room.  And then – problems.  All three of the dresses had the sensor tags on and one of the zippers was broken.

Back into the car I went, with my loving sister and maid-of-honor in tow (mostly because I don’t like to do things by myself).

And then, the Universe shined its light upon us.  Not only did they take the tags off with no problem and find my dress in my size with a working zipper, but on our way out the door, as we passed the less-than-reputable JCPenney Hair Salon, my sister stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh that’s cute.”

My sister has very thin, smooth hair, which, while lovely, is very difficult to curl or otherwise formulate in a formal hairstyle.  She’s been racking her brain trying to find a hairstyle that isn’t crazy formal or traditional (i.e., a French twist) and is going to stay put (i.e., nothing with curls).  And so now, after a few quick pictures on my camera phone, we have the inspiration for my sister’s hair for the wedding.

Have you found inspiration when you’re not looking?  Tell me about the weirdest place the beauty muse has visited you.