I’m introducing a new offbeat feature here on the website — Mailbag! I get so many great emails from readers and someone of them are just meant to be shared with the world. In this first installment of Mailbag, we hear from Siouxzi, who had a nightmare dress shopping experience

Hey Ariel,
I wanted to say thanks I bought your book when we first got engaged. I really appreciated the anecdotes and advice. I thought I’d share what I’m going through right now with you.

My mother has stage IV lung cancer and also cancer in her pelvic bone. I don’t say that for pity. It’s just the situation we’re in. My fiance and I never really did the whole on the knee surprise engagement. We’d decided drunkenly on night ages ago (I think this new year’s maybe?) that we wanted to get married. My mother asked if we’d set a date, and the answer was no. We didn’t even have an engagement ring. We saw it mostly as a thing for her to look forward to, maybe in Spring 2009.

Tuesday I got the call from my mom. The tumors are growing again, her lung was filled with fluid, they were going to drain it and start chemo on Friday. After a lot of crying and thinking and talking we decided to push up the wedding. To
November 2007.

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