Two narrow misses and a hit

Ah the wedding crap. It's never ending it seems, just like my posts about it seem to be. Invites and thank-yous are being received, though my thank-yous are arriving a week and a half after they were mailed which makes me look like a jerk. Thanks, Canada Post! Tuxes? Also done.


When it came to shopping for my dress, being the indecisive fashion moron that I am, picking a dress was, well, hard. I have friends who tried on THE dress the first time they put one on. Yeah, not me. My sorry butt is indecisive and it took a crowd of 5 people saying "that's it" to convince me. I still think I may have picked the wrong one, but? Too bad! Too late now!

So, when picking out a dress, I went with an entourage of mum, sister and two friends, and hit a bunch of bridal salons in the area. I almost ordered the dress at a place I'll call Bridal Store S. I'd heard good things about Bridal Store S. I tried the dress on it on at Bridal Store F, liked it there, but it was a wee bit cheaper because alterations were included at Bridal Store S.

Then, I freaked out at the money it would cost - it seemed stupid to spend $1000 on a dress I'd only ever wear once. So, I ordered it on eBay, for half the price. Yay eBay.

When it came to BM dresses, I ordered them from Bridal Store F, only because it was closer than Bridal Store S when I went looking with my sister.

I called to check on the BM dresses Saturday because they said they'd be in sometime in early July. But, bridal Store F said "oh no, they won't be in until early August, despite what we told you when you ordered them." Yeah, not gonna work. Wedding in late August, early August is NOT ENOUGH TIME.

Cue calm, but deliberately firm Hairy Canary from Bridezilla. Bridal Store F says they'd "look into it" for me.

Luckily, four days later the dresses are contentedly hanging in our living room. Phew. Narrow Miss Number One. (luckily my bridesmaids don't look anywhere near as dorky as these two lovely ladies modeling them. They're tea length if you're the curious type)

Narrow Miss Number Two was something I witnessed at Bridal Store F. While the clerk tried figuring out how to ring the BM dresses through (a process which, in and of itself took 20 minutes and took a few "what was that? what button do I press next?" questions of fellow employees), a frantic couple rushes up to the desk, out of breath.

I shamelessly eavesdrop and hear that they're in a wedding on Saturday (this being Wednesday!), and had ordered and paid for dresses at Bridal Store S, but because Store S isn't paying its bills to dress manufacturer, they won't ship the dresses out to them. They were being told for weeks at Bridal Store S that the dresses would be in "next week" and they never came! Apparently these people were the tenth panicked people who were wedding dress-less for a wedding in a matter of days. So glad I was too lazy to drive to Bridal Store S.

The one hit? The bridesmaid dresses! They're cute! They actually match the tux vests we picked out for the guys so closely it's like I knew all along! Yay blind luck! (Enough exclamation points Heather, it's getting annoying!)

So, anyone have any wedding horror stories to share? I'm getting my dress altered tomorrow, and there's nothing like a few great horror stories to quicken the pulse and strike fear in the mind of a bride-to-be.

Woo hoo!

Just got an email saying the wedding dress I ordered on eBay is en route to my house! (Yes, I realize this violates the "no more dress posts" pledge just a couple of posts below, and I'll warn you that I'll probably make it worse by posting the day it actually gets here.)

UPDATE: the dress is here! Dave signed for it, and despite a panic attack (the box was wet) it arrived, blemish free, and fits (though it's hard to do up because of the nature of the dress (can't give more details than that b/c Dave reads the blog) and it's a wee bit loose at the boobs! I'm hoping it'll need lots of alterations by August anyway! Duty was $89.40, making the dress $485.73, all in (except alterations) which made this eBay experiment a savings of $495.22 cheaper than anywhere else I shopped. YIPEE!

The end of the dress posts...

This will be the last post about wedding dresses. Promise. I just ordered mine from a dude on eBay! Yikes! Don't panic, though, it's one I've tried on in stores and gotten the appropriate "ooohh" response from friends/family.

I am, however, playing a bit of "size roulette" though. I tried the dress on in one store, and it was a bit tight there- I could zip it up a bit (well as much as is possible with a broken zipper) but it did somewhat resemble sausage casing on me (not the dress's fault, I know). At another store I tried it on two sizes bigger than the sausage casing one and it was almost "fall to the ground" too big on me. So, I elected to order the size in between "sausage casing" and "almost drop to the floor." Hopefully that was the right move.

The bonus of eBay is that the dress was about $500 cheaper than it was at the stores. That's a pretty big savings, and one we needed since our wedding is on a shoestring budget.

The trade-off, though, is that it's a bit nerve wracking to buy a dress on eBay. I'm not a regular eBay person, and perhaps that's the problem. All I've bought on eBay is my little timex watch. So jumping from a $29.99 watch to a wedding dress is a bit nervy, especially given the fact that the dude selling the dress hasn't answered the question I sent more than a week ago, or the two follow-up emails I sent. But, somehow, I trust this whole internet thingy and hopefully nothing bad will come of my blind trust. The dude has good feedback but the theme throughout was that the dress was fine, but the communication from the seller sucked. I hope this post won't be followed in a few weeks with a "Aaaaahhhh what have I done?!" post.

FOLLOW UP: I got an email saying the "manufacturer's completion date is 2nd week of April, or sooner. Occasionally they do run ahead of there previous scheduled ship dates." Hopefully mine is one of the "ahead of schedule" ones.

By popular demand...

Well not really, but since Allison asked...I give you the front of the fish dress.
It's not nearly as hideous from the front but the back really does it in. I'd be playing with it and making fishey faces on our wedding day which really won't look so hot in the photos. The fact I look like there should be people from greenpeace urging me to go back to the sea doesn't help it either. Here's the dress on a pretty model.

I've already decided on a strapless dress, but it does come with optional straps which I'll likely use at the reception.

Meringue-ey goodness

If the reference to the dress below weren't enough to confirm my mental maturity level is at the same level as your average four year old I offer this one:



When I tried this perfectly beautiful dress I didn't like it because I thought I looked like a big meringue topped pie.

Heeeeerrree fishy, fishy fishy!

If I try on an (otherwise beautiful) wedding dress and immediately decide I don't like it because the back of it makes me look like a cuttlefish does that mean I'm not mature enough to get married? Does likening bridal gowns to cephalopods (and demonstrating it to the sales lady) confirm my mental maturity is equivalent to that of a 4 year old? I think my mother and sister were somewhat mortified.


Either way, tomorrow the search continues with a contingent of friends to help along the way. I'll feel much more organized about the whole wedding thing once the dress part is out of the way.