Random Blue Fabric

The thing about planning a wedding is that you never know when wedding stuff is going to come walking in the door in a goodwill bag. There you are minding your own business working on your essay and mom walks in and puts a bag next to you and says is this the right blue?

Looks good to me! She found 3 bags of this fabric. We don't really know what it was used for, some of it is in smaller like 2 yard sections but two of the pieces are pretty dang long. I don't know what we are going to do with it but it's cheap and cool! Looks good to me! :-)

I FOUND IT!

The other day I went on round 6 with Shari, Grammy, and Mom (Elaine Thad's Grandma was sick :-( ). We planned to go to Charlotte's Bridal which is right across the street from Jesuit High School. I had looked on their online catalog of dresses that I THOUGHT they had. So I was prepared to try on a dress that I had found online that had all of the components that I like in a dress. But stupid me I didn't call and see if actually had it. So we went and when we got there they said they didn't have it but they had one "similar". I don't know what they thought similar meant unless they though it meant nothing even close to the same. I tried on a few but mostly was like what no these are mostly bad. I think like 2 were passable to be maybe okay but they weren't really what I was wanting. One was nice on top but wasn’t the fabric I really wanted and they would have had to do  lot of duplicating some beading which would have been maybe okay but then after they called they said that designer wouldn’t do it. So it was like yeah that really didn’t sell me.

But the others were pretty bad. There was one that I tried on that after I said I didn’t like it, everyone was like, “Oh thank goodness!” and my mom said “I wouldn’t have paid for that!” So it was pretty much a dud. The lady had me walk around and look at everything they had to see if I found anything I wanted to try on, but it was no luck. I think because I am just not into what are the big styles and techniques that are popular right now. As my dad told me, I’m looking for something more traditional. But that doesn’t mean I want to break out my mom’s dress ;-)

So as we were deciding to leave Megan over Skype (because we had skyped her in) asked what my top 5 dresses were that I had tried on. And I said well I really liked the skirt of that one at the very first store that I went to with the girls, and I guess after that the one I thought I liked, and then the top of this other one but I wasn’t really sold on anything. So from that I got to thinking about maybe how I should go back to that very first store to see if the bottom skirt of that one dress was really as amazing as I remembered it being, or if I had been building it up in my mind. So while we were waiting to leave I called them up and told them we had just had a dud experience and wanted to see if they could get us in to look at the skirt of that dress. They said sure and that they had an hour to fit us in and even with the same consultant that we had last time! So we said great! And then in the transition over I grabbed a sandwich for lunch and Mom and Grammy had some bagels and we headed back to Store #1 for round 7. (Bridal Exclusives at Bridgeport)

I walked in and Lindsey was at the front desk waiting for me and had already pulled the two that I had liked last time. I told her that I had not great experiences since I had seen her last but that I knew now pretty much what I was looking for. So she set me up in a bay and we walked around and she showed me some other dresses. She said that since I didn’t like the top of that dress, that if I found the top of another dress by that same designer that they would be able to mix and match it for me to have that bottom! I was pretty stoked with that idea (although in my head I was seeing $$$). So we pulled some other dresses that I would maybe like. They had the best selection of my style of dress (and all styles total) by far from anywhere else (10/10 would recommend!). 

I found there the dress that I had thought I liked at the other store so I tried that one on first. And I was glad I did because it dispelled any doubt that it might have been the dress for me. I said, and to coin my classic dress shopping phrase, “I like the top, but… I don’t like the bottom”. Most specifically on this dress I didn’t like the bottom of the back. The front was beautiful, but when I looked at the back I hated it. It looked sloppy. Lindsey said she had always disliked the back on that dress too. So it was yep this isn’t it and off with it and on to the next. 

Then I tried on the one with the skirt that I really liked. And oh man. That was right where it was at. The bottom of the skirt was just GORGEOUS and EXCACTLY what I had been wanting. It didn’t have a ton of stuff on it that I didn’t like and it didn’t have a bunch of flowers. It was perfect. The top on the other hand… It was just okay. I wasn’t thrilled. It had a weird belt thing that I didn’t like and it didn’t seem as flattering of a top to me. I was preparing myself to just suck it up and live with it for the sake of the bottom though. But then I remembered what Lindsey said about mismatching. So after we oohed and awed over the skirt of the dress, Lindsey pulled one of the dresses by the same designer that I had told her I liked. It looked awesome on the hanger. So it was off with the gorgeous skirt dress and into the one with a different top and a boring bottom.

I really liked the top of this dress – a few things. It wasn’t a sweetheart neckline which is the sort that I was liking the best. Lindsey said that I could have that altered no problem, easy. The other thing was that it wasn’t the type of ruched top that I had thought was really flattering to me. The top I was wearing was what I had been picturing in my head, but I wasn’t sure if I should be going with that sort of top and not with the other kind. So Lindsey went and grabbed that sort of top from the same designer again, so that if I wanted, I could try to do a custom with that sort of top.

Before I switched tops though, Lindsey had the crazy idea to put the dress with the gorgeous skirt on OVER the dress that I was already wearing. And I was already wearing a ball gown and was going to try putting ANOTHER ball gown over the top of it. That’s a lot of fabric!!!! So it was pretty hectic! But also really fun. And one she put it on over and I saw them together it was like “Wow I think this must be it.” I LOVED it! It was exactly like what I had been looking for! Just the right amount of everything and flattering and not boring! IT WAS PERFECT! 

Shari got me to look at the other top and did the one dress over the other again and everyone was just like “Oh”. It wasn’t nearly as good. It wasn’t bad but compared to the first there was no contest. So I put the other one back on and just loved it. I walked around I looked in the mirror, I smiled, and ALMOST cried. But then I got stuck on the idea of how much this magnificent dress was going to cost me since it was custom this and that and etc. So I looked at Mom who looked at the dress and asked the burning question. How much will it cost us to have this wonderfully perfect for me dress done?

Lindsey went off to call the designer manufacturer or whatever you call them while we sat and thought about it. I thought it was going to be a lot. The dresses that I had tried on at Charlottes were like 1800 or 2300 for ugly ones. I couldn’t think of what a custom gorgeous one was going to cost me. Especially because everything I had ever seen had said that what I wanted was going to cost me more to have. So I was mentally preparing to think about where I was going to cut stuff or decide to settle for something else. Mom said she didn’t think it was going to cost too much though because one of them that she had seen the price on was 1,000. I figured though that the custom and all that would make it way more expensive. 

Lindsey came back with our number ($1055 for the dress, $300 for the changing of the bottom). We all looked at each other. I was shocked it was only that much for all that it is. We said great! We will take it! I decided to also get it done with a corset/lace up back as well. I think those are so pretty! I am still so excited about it. I LOVE the dress. It is exactly what I pictured in my head. Shari took off to get home for dinner while we finished wrapping up the deal.

Then Mom called Dad and he came by unfortunately just a few minutes after I had taken off the dress(es). I showed him them on the hanger. I said, “Here is my dress! … and here is my other dress!” He was confused but we explained it. I don’t know if he really got the picture of how AMAZING it is but it was nice for him to stop by. 

I am really excited that I finally found what I was looking for. After six shops you get a little disheartened that you won’t find it… I was glad that both the moms were there when I found it, as well as my Grammy. I think that is really special that they are all so supportive of my marriage. It is really cool to have such amazing women there for me. 

The next day I got a text from my Grammy telling me that she really wanted to buy me my dress. I was floored. I hadn’t expected that at all and it means a lot that even though I don’t see her very much that she is always a supportive force in my life. She even dug out a picture of me wearing a veil when I was playing dress up at her house when I was younger. I was pretty cute :-) But it just really shows how much she cares about me. She even sent me a witty card! On the front it said: “Houses are made with boards and beams, Homes are made with Love and Dreams” And then on the inside she added, “and weddings are made of $ it seems.” 

I’m so excited for the dress to get here! In like 6 months… Oh and I guess I'm a little excited to marry the best man ever ;-)

P.s. Here's my moms rendering of the dress!

Dress Hunting Round: 3 ...4... 5....

For my third round of dress shopping I went with my cousin Anika and aunt Annette, Megan, Mom, and Kathi and Robyn.

We went to a store in Eugene and had one of the WORST consultants ever in all time. I thought that the last one had been bad. But this one was a sort of sad looking larger woman who wasn't very helpful. I walked in and told her what I wanted and didn't want and she immediately went and pulled dresses that were nothing like what I wanted at all! I had to keep telling her that it wasn't what I wanted! This store was interesting because it had a runway type thing which was kind of cool to see how the dress moved when I moved. I found one dress here that was sort of what I was looking for but not close enough to make my top 5 dresses. Some were nice but after being told you were too big to try on a dress you get a little upset... But then you get told that the dress that fit you great is also too small and you are like whaaaat. I feel like lay you don't know what you are talking about. She was pretty unhelpful and not really into making it a very fun experience... I did really like sparkly fabric veil that they had there though. So at least all was not lost and I learned more about what I didn't like!

Next for round 4 I went with Robyn, my aunt Kathi, Mom and Jean to look at a store in Salem. It wasn't a bad store at all and the helper lady wasn't bad but she also wasn't fabulous. I did find one that I really liked at the first store in Salem. They were rated higher than their competition who was literally across the street so we went there first. Robyn found one that I really liked! It had not the same skirt as I was looking for, but I thought it was very flattering. In the process we also found a bridesmaid’s dress that was the right color purple! I had her try it on to see what that color actually looks like on a person because I wasn't so sure about if that color would work well with her (she'll be the hardest when it comes to skin tone and hair tone colors). But it actually looked pretty dang good! The wedding dress was really pretty and I tried it on twice.  I liked it a lot and left the store thinking that it might be the one.

After shopping and maybe finding the one, we headed over across the street to see what they had for a round 5. We were told that we wouldn't be able to try anything on because we didn't have an appointment. I wasn’t so bothered because I was happy I had found something already and I just wanted to see if anything was really like "TRY ME ON!" to book an appointment with them. There wasn't but they did have a large selection of weird prom dresses! After that we left and decided to drive around Salem looking for more Bridal stores. This ended up being sort of a waste of time and not very productive. We did go into a very clearly Mexican quinceanera type store where they ha like 8 dresses in stock and you would order more out of catalogs. I was pretty unimpressed and could have passed for just driving by. But we stopped and mom chatted and flipped through the books for five minutes before we called it quits and left. So I guess that would technically be a round 5.5

When I got home and started looking at the pictures of the maybe it dress I learned that I didn't like the back... very much at all... I was glad that we didn't buy it, and I hadn't wanted us to because I was so unsure about the skirt being so NOT what I thought I wanted. So then I started to get flustered that I wouldn't ever find it... 

The Hunt Begins: Round 1 and 2

 

Because Thad reads this blog and doesn't want to know about the dresses that I try on, I made some details in a font that matches this background. You can read it by highlighting the text :-)

So before going dress shopping for the first time, Cassidy said she would probably be spending the night at my place the night before. I figured, hey might as well invite the whole girls squad! So I sent out an invite and Kristen and Robyn decided to come too! Megan unfortunately was down in California visiting family and going to Disneyland so she wasn't able to join in. We missed her :-( But there will be more fun girly occasions!

We spent the evening scrolling though Pinterest, looking through a bridal magazine, and watching all of the chick flick wedding movies. I had just gotten Bride Wars, 27 Dresses, and Bridesmaids. We had fun eating pizza and ice cream and having a general good slumber party time. We made a dollar tree run to find white boards so that they could provide feedback on the dresses on the boards during the dress trying on!

It was lots of fun to share my wedding plans and to get some other peoples thoughts on everything. We didn't stay up too late so we were well rested for the coming day! But it was nice to have some bonding time with the girls :-) I hadn't had a girl’s night in a long time!

So the next day we woke up and had some bagels and such before heading off to Tigard to try on some dresses! The whole process worked really well. We walked in and were greeted by Lindsey, a nice young woman who seemed to really know how to do her job. She had me pick out one gown from each different silhouette to see what kind of dress I thought worked well for my body type and what I felt good in. I hadn't done too much searching for what I wanted before going in because I didn't want to fall in love with a style and then be really disappointed when I walked in and it looked bad on me. Walking over to the racks I was pretty overwhelmed because I wasn't sure what I wanted or what was very "me". I was relieved when Cassidy and Robyn came over to help me pick out the trial silhouette dresses. I wasn't too concerned with what these looked like because I was just going for trying on one for the shape. I think they may have come over because they were scared when I pulled this very strange toga looking Grecian dress. ;-)

Trying on the different silhouettes was really a good place to start and I would recommend it to anyone because just thinking about my body type I had sort of thought that I would need to kick out some of the silhouettes automatically because I thought they would look bad on me. But when I tried them on I was surprised that some that I thought were going to be really bad, weren't bad at all. I was glad that I wasn't set on a particular style, but the styles that I ended up going with were the two that I thought that I would have liked. But it was good to see them all on first before making that decision.

So after I knew okay these are the two styles that I liked (Ball gown and A-Line), we went back and pulled ones that were in those styles to get a better grip on what I liked in dresses and what I didn't. I figured out pretty quickly what I didn't like (Lace and Flowers). And what I did like (Tulle and Sparkles). From there it became more about what the dresses actually looked like. I probably tried on about 20 dresses at the first store. I was really good about finding tops and bottoms of the dresses that I liked but I couldn't find one that had both elements that I liked. I did though through the process figure out exactly what I wanted! So now it is just a matter of finding it! It was fun to have all the girls and my moms there to tell me what they thought of the dresses and what they thought of them. Towards the end my mom pulled a couple that I liked that hadn't been in that specific style which I really appreciated because they had the things I wanted in a different silhouette which just showed me that it's got to be out there. And helped me reconsider something that I thought I didn't like that I actually did.  We didn’t find the dress at the first store but we left with the catalog numbers of the dresses that I did like and the information that I possible could take one of the skirt designs that I really liked and pair it with a different top by the same designer.

After the first store we decided to hit up some lunch in Bridgeport but it was pretty busy and I didn’t really want to be battling post-Christmas lunch crowds and the like for our party of 6 that we decided to carpool over to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. It was good and some of the girls had never been there so it was fun to take them someplace new.

After that we decided to try our luck at a smaller store in Tigard. This store was more of a browse on your own and then try on the ones you picked sort of place. They don’t do appointments so we had to wait a few minutes for one of the attendant ladies to be able to help us out. I was excited because this store had a dress that I had really liked online that I was hoping to try on at some point.

The lady at this shop was not as helpful as the one at the last place and not as nice either. I recognize that we were coming in at a time when they were already working with two others but she seemed really unhelpful and really not a people person. I could tell pretty quickly by this point once I put a dress on if I liked it or not. So when I put on a dress I would have it on for maybe two minutes and then be ready for the next. Because she was helping the other women it was hard t just get in and out. I ended up not liking the one that I had seen online in person. The elements of the dress didn’t look the same as they had appeared in the pictures. Which makes me glad I saw it in person! It had a lot of iridescent sequins in the dress that only sparkled in the sun and having it be Oregon in the winter I wasn’t ready to take the chance. I tried on another dress that had everything that I was looking for. But I didn’t like it because it had a lot of flower detailing and having it be a winter wedding that wasn’t really the style I was looking for. And when the lady asked what I didn’t like about the dress because it seemingly had what I was looking for and I told her I didn’t like it because all of the lace had a lot of flowers on it she gave me a like “are you freaking kidding me” look and then just seemed to have an attitude the rest of the time. I didn’t try on as many dresses there, maybe about 5? Both because it was clear they didn’t have what I was looking for and because that lady was kind of bringing down my mood.

It was fun to be able to have this whole trying on dresses experience with my 2 moms and most of my bridesmaids before they went back to the east coast or off to Denmark or up to Tacoma. I wanted them to be a part of the process even if they couldn’t be there for when I actually find the dress. I have a few months to find what I’m looking for so I’m not too worried. But I am excited to find it!