Another dress shopping weekend!

I'm revisiting a store I went to last weekend to try on dresses tomorrow. I'm taking John with me. I don't really care about "bad luck" of him seeing me in my dress, besides, it's not really my dress since they only carry dress samples at bridal boutiques. Plus these dresses are probably more expensive than my mom will let me have.

The dress I really want costs around $3000-$5000 and I would have to have it custom made in Chicago: http://www.alicepadrul.com/2007collection.php#_self click on "Lily". If someone wants to tell me how to paste pictures in here, please oblige me.

So my first expedition dress shopping was two Saturdays ago. John and I found this boutique called "Mockingbird Bridal." I tried to get in the door and was immediately confronted with the sight of a girl trying on a strapless satin ball gown. So I sidestepped her into a little room off the to right holding dress sample. Every last one of them was a strapless satin ball gown. I elbowed my way past the girl to find the next rack of strapless satin ball gowns and was practically pushed into the rack by three girls gushing over a strapless satin ball gown. I fought my way through the crowds of mothers and daughters and bridesmaids-to-be to get in line for the dressing room with the one lace dress with straps I could find where another bride was trying on a strapless satin ball gown. Four dress assistants walked past me without so much as asking if I needed assistance. By now, I'm totally nauseated by the spectacle and I tell John we might as well save ourselves and get out of there. The moral of the story is the following: don't go dress shopping on a Saturday and don't go without an appointment.

So then I went to Terry Costa Formals on the following Friday. I told the lady I was doing and informal outdoor wedding, and that I was leary of strapless satin ball gowns. She said "that's gonna be a problem...." So she put me in a bunch of things that were totally opposite to what I asked for. She said there were some choices like I asked for, but the samples were about a size 6 or 8, so my size 12 body was not going to fit into them. Most of the dresses I did try on had to be clamped onto my body so I could see how they would look zipped up since none of them would zip over my enormous blubbery back. In the interest of saving the zippers in the sample dresses, she began putting them on over my head. She tried to put a mermaid silouette dress on me and the "fishtail" portion of the dress wouldn't go past my giant hips, so I had the bust of the dress around my ears. I was slightly embarrassed. Please email me if you want to see the pictures of the hideous experience.

The next day, John was picking up some shirts from a place in a fancy shopping center in Highland Park. A cute wedding dress boutique called "Warren Barron" was next door. No one was in there, so though I knew I couldn't afford anything in that store, I went in. The ladies were nice and even let me touch the dresses. The owner of the store asked what my budget was and recommended a similar store with less high end stuff "Our dresses start around $5000" she told me.

It was a nasty day with the hurricane coming in, so the lady at the other store, Blush Couture, told me to come right in. So I did and I got to try on about eight dresses, all of which I loved a lot more than anything at Terry Costa. And they didn't even carry ball gowns. And the lady told me my figure was too cute to hide in a shapeless dress anyway. Did I mention I love this store? And when she was printing out my appraisal she let me eat these delicious things called "cruffles" which are cakes covered in chocolate like truffles. I cannot describe how delicious these things were....I ate two.

So the three dresses from the Bellissima collection I tried on were these:

Emilia...which looks pretty damn close to the Alice Padrul I love...and check out the ruffles on the back!!! http://www.bellissimabridal.com/couture/emilia.html

Tessa...which I normally would hate on the rack, but my curves looked so smokin in this dress...I looked like Marilyn Monroe!!! http://www.bellissimabridal.com/couture/tessa.html

And Silvana..really my favorite dress in concept, but the others may have looked better on my body...John will have to weigh in for sure: http://www.bellissimabridal.com/couture/silvana.html

So I'm pretty excited to have John see them because they are all beautiful dresses. Anyway, they're around $2000-$2300, and my mom has informed me that the most I should pay is $500. Which doesn't make sense to me because they tell you your dress should be about 10% of your total budget. Am I having a $5000 wedding? I hope not....

Anyway, I'm going to Charleston for my mom's 61st birthday next weekend. So I'm going to sit down with my parents and outline a budget and then we're going to do family dress shopping together next Monday. So I will keep my faithful reader updated on how that goes!!