Bridal Boogie

I've got the wedding dress! It's bright purple with lots of feathers. If your name's not Austin, email me and I'll give you a little different information.

We started out at a little before 10 in the parking lot of David's Bridal. Once we got inside, they had lost my info and it took a while before I could start trying on dresses. We spent about two hours there with 9 or 10 different gowns, but nothing really clicked. I'd say about half the dresses there were yucky, and either very 1980's or just weird. They all were a little grimy from being tried on so many times, and some were scratchy. I was surprised how none of them fit anyone well. We manage to get regular clothes that fit almost everyone reasonably well, so it's interesting to see dresses bagging off or squeezing in depending on the style. Overall, David's wasn't bad because it let me try on some of almost every style and figure out what looked good on me.

After a break for lunch, we went up to a small place in Bay City. They were having a random sale where all the samples in the store were half off, and if you ordered one you'd still get 20% off. The first dress I saw I nearly flopped over in bridal happiness, until I looked at the price tag. $1200?!?!? I was SURE it was going to be "the one", until I tried it on and it made me look like a top-heavy moulin rouge extra. In white, of course. Turns out simple does look better on me, to the delight of pocketbooks everywhere.

Deonna was the one who spotted "the one", it turns out. She said it would be her dress if she ever got married, and I agreed it was beautiful. It was also the neckline I had been searching for at David's, but they didn't have any in that style. When I tried it on and came out, we confused the salesgirl since I told her it was D's dress, and I was just trying it on for her. The bippy little redhead turned to suck up to D, and we took a garbled 30 seconds to straighten her out.

I always thought it'd be yucky to buy the sample dress, since it's been on hundreds of ladies and it might be icky. It actually looks really good, and doesn't even compare to the makeup-smeared monsters down at David's. There were only a very few random beads missing, and they're sewing them on for me during the alterations part. It's snug through the chestal region (big surprise) and the hem needs to come up. We had the seamstress come over and she said it would be no problem to let the side seams out and have it fit, so I'm happy. I did NOT want to be one of the ladies who gets her dress too small with the idea she'll diet down to squeeze into it. I don't need that kind of pressure.

Overall, I'm quite happy. I found one I liked for half off, so the frugal side isn't wincing too much. It really is beautiful, and I love the neckline and how heavy the dress feels. The dresses at David's really did feel cheaper, with lighter and scratchier material. It's being cleaned now, but I want to have it again so I can wear it while I watch tv, or go for a run, or vacuum. I think I may need the veil sooner than I'd thought. Well, now that I've got the dress, all I need to do is...everything else. Vroom!

Posted by Janine at September 09, 2002 12:05 PM