On Saturday my mom, little sister, older sister, sister-in-law, 2 nieces and I went shopping for my wedding dress. I know I've told most of you that I had the dress the I wanted, but I wanted to try on similar silhouettes to get the general idea of what the dress from Hong Kong would look like. I did bring the photo of the dress with me and we headed down to Orem/Provo area.
Now I'm not really big on shopping in general for myself because you have to accept the way you look in clothes, there's no hiding it, it is what it is. And that was my biggest fear about trying on the dresses but you need a dress, not exactly kosher if the bride shows up in a t-shirt and jeans. Besides the last time I went dress shopping I ended up looking like a giant marshmallow with beading along my bust line.
We started out at Lauren James Bridal at the University Mall. It was a new bridal store so why not try it out right? Besides I had the dress in mind and if they didn't have it I wasn't going to be too terribly heart broken since I knew I could get the one I wanted. So I tried on dresses there and it wasn't too terribly bad but because my chest is larger than my shoulders I would have to pay in alterations to get the shoulders taken in and everything else. So I they had me try on some strapless dresses, now I went through the temple over a year ago so I can't do strapless but 'you could put a jacket with it' I was told over and over again. So I tried on the strapless, they fit better in the bust but that's about it. At least my consultant did suggest that I go to David's Bridal since her store didn't carry the real theme of my wedding. It's along the lines of the late 40's and 50's style. At least my dress is.
So onto David's Bridal there the consultant was super nice and they at least give you undergarments to try on with the dresses. But here is some advice on how to put on a strapless bra that hooks all down the back. Slide it on over your head. Simple right? everything will be squished into place after that. There I tried on alot of dresses. Some I liked, some I hated. Kind of wished Beth had gotten pictures of the ones I hated and the looks I gave them. We found one dress that I really liked but it was strapless, and 2 sizes too small. :( The only I could try on the dress in my size is if I bought it and it would be in on May 26. But if I didn't like it then I could always return it. I didn't really want to do that because I knew I wouldn't get all of my money back if I bought it outright because of restocking fees and everything else. So they had me try on longer dresses, I'd been trying on tea length dresses most of the time. (I didn't really want to try on longer dresses because my heart was set on a tea length and why buy a long dress just to have like 2 feet of it cut off?) So I tried on 2 long dresses, one happened to be the dress the girl next to me had just said she would purchase. So since those were all a bust we decided to break for lunch. I hadn't eaten anything yet that morning so I probably wasn't in the best of moods.
After lunch I felt a lot better and we tried Allyses bridal just down the street. So I got a consultant and she took me up to the store room and we went through some dresses, they didn't have any tea length dresses but again I could have it cut to be a tea length. So I tried on more dresses. I even did a mermaid dress, I felt like a sausage in lace so we decided on a no on that one. Then she went up to the stock room to see if she could find anything else. She brought down more dresses and the first 2 were okay not a lot of beading or anything that I would want to play with. Couldn't do pleats because I wanted to put my hands in them. Then we tried on a very plain dress that you would have to accessories. So we added a red sash, didn't care too much for that, then my sister got the idea of adding a black sash, and a red flower to the front off to the side. Then we added the veil type thing and raised the dress to the length I wanted and I saw it. I saw my dress and I pictured myself coming out of the temple with Chris by my side hand in hand and I knew it was my dress.
So while I was getting changed back into my clothes my mom and sisters were talking. The design of the dress is a very simple design and the material wouldn't be that expensive. So my mom and sister figure they can make my dress and the accessories needed for the look I want for a lot less than it would be for me to buy the dress as is. The dress was a size too big so they'd have to take in the shoulders and bust a lot, yay for taking in the bust on me. And then still take off the length at the bottom for the length I want and then the accessories. So just for alterations and accessories we are looking at around another $400 on top of the $374. So the goal is to make about an $800 dress to be around $150 made. So here's hoping my aunt can help them out if there are some sticky parts and it will turn out to be how I vision it.
