The Rising Sun of Japan

I think most everyone close to us knows this story by now -- and Lizzie's not here right now to tell me I can't share it with the rest of the internet, so here it is, my first mistake of engaged life!

About 2 months ago, Lizzie was flipping through bridal magazines while I was doing something important, no doubt. She called me over to ask me if I liked a dress featured on a picture in the magazine.

"No, that strap looks stupid and the skirt looks like Rising Sun of Japan!"

I don't know if that quote is verbatim as it has been a while since it happened, but it's pretty close. Lizzie looked a little stung, but I thought nothing of it and she continued flipping through the magazine and started showing me other pictures and asking my opinion. Yes, no, sort of -- the answers ran the gamut of opinions, but the rest of my responses weren't quite as... colorful? As we started to run out of pictures in the magazine, Lizzie's mood started to become more and more depressed. Through my unmatched deductive reasoning skills, I figured that this was not because we were running out of pictures.

Most of the married people out there probably know what happened here. They probably knew in the first 2 paragraphs.

"You showed me a picture of the dress you really like, didn't you?"

"Yes"

"I said I didn't like it, didn't I?"

"Yes"

"Was it the Rising Sun of Japan?"

At this point, her eyes simply started welling up. Whoops.

I've been running damage control ever since. It started with "you're going to hate my dress," and it's been downgraded to the point where she still thinks she likes the dress enough that she doesn't care that what I call it. Which is good for her, because even after I prompted my family to think of that flag when they saw it, none of them actually saw the military flag of Japan. They think I'm crazy.

So, should we get married and Lizzie is wearing the Rising Sun of Japan, we'll have both Japanese AND Mexican culture at our wedding. I'm sure she'll look better than any of the models I've seen in those pictures.