I Got My Dress! Pt. 1 - Some Ugly Bits

I got my dress, I'm in love, and it was way more than I thought I'd spend, and I don't even care. Care to hear the tale?

I decided, on somewhat of a whim, to make an appointment to look at dresses at Priscilla of Boston (I'll call it the POB). I know, that was really my first mistake. As I had mentioned previously, I fell in love with "drew" and "petunia". I had also moderately fell for a few of the other short dresses available from the collections at POB. I told myself that this adventure would either 1) Make me realize I hated these dresses or 2) Make me fall further in love and realize I needed to find a way to get one of them. I also felt comfortable with POB being the place to start my adventures because they had a lot of short dresses, so I figured they wouldn't be acting all snooty to a short dress bride.

I conned Zach into joining me for this adventure, mostly because I wanted company and I really trusted his opinion. Not to mention, he's the one I'm marrying and I want him to think I look wonderful in the dress, so I want his opinion.


We got there and they I have to say they were wonderful. I really couldn't have asked for a better consultant (A little shout out to Nancy!). She wasn't in any way phased that Zach was there, that I was looking for a short dress, or anything. She actually seemed excited to help me with the short dresses... and boy do they have a lot! I think I tried on probably a dozen or so different beautiful short dresses. Suffice to say, I was in dress heaven! Nancy even brought out some wonderful fun heels and a wonderful bird cage veil, both without me even asking for them specifically! I was happy as a clam.. going along with my short dress plan... not a soul in sight seemed freaked out by what I wanted, or by who my dress shopping companion was! Every time I came out of the dressing room all I saw was happy complimentary faces. Ahh... this is the life.

Of course, then a girl that I know through work happened to walk in (she's getting married soon too) and as I'm out there, spinning around in my beautiful short dress (it might have been drew by this time) in my happy dress-drunken state, she stopped to say hi. Now mind you, this is a person that I would have said I really liked, someone I had actually thought I might try to become better friends with.

Then she just looked me up and down and said, "That's just for fun, right?"

I stood there very confused. I actually didn't even know what she meant. "I'm getting married, yes." You see at this point, I was so in love and on board with my short dress idea that I didn't actually even know what she meant and I wasn't actually sure that she knew I was engaged. Silly me.

"Oh yeah, I know. The dress I mean," She retorted.

"Oh, um, well yeah, maybe. I don't know yet," I responded sheepishly. I don't know how I looked at that moment, but in my head, it was like a little girl who had just been yelled at for playing dress up in her mom's fancy clothes.

She left and that was the end of it. I looked at Zach and said, "See what I mean!?" We had previously had a few discussions about how much judgement there was around weddings, and there it was. He saw the catty crap right in front of him and he agreed, it was ugly.

Too bad for her I was in a dress I was quickly falling in love with and one look back in the mirror and I really didn't care what she had to say. I loved Drew (the dress) and everyone around was oh-ing and ah-ing at how great Drew and I looked together, so the negativity was quickly erased by happy thoughts of marrying Zach in this amazing dress.....

But then she brought out some options that were on sale..... and I got a little bit confused.... stay tuned for more!

Please Stop with the 20-Million Questions!

One of the biggest things I have struggled with since Zach and I got engaged is the constant questioning. From the moment we announced we were engaged... people are a barrage of questions. Did you set a date? Have you looked at dresses? Where are you going to have it?

I know that all of these questions are meant to be nice. I know that these are the questions people feel comfortable asking a woman with an engagement ring on her finger. In fact, they might even feel obligated to ask them, since I'm supposed to be a flutter of planning and plotting by now (we are a whole TWO months post-proposal now). I think if The Knot had its way I would already have a date, a location and probably a dress practically picked out by now.

I don't have any of that done. We're still working on a concept, but I think we're finally getting comfortable with one at this point. Of course, as I start to get comfortable with our concept, the more self-conscious I feel about sharing it with the people who keep asking what we're doing. So for now, I just tell them, "We're still working on it" or "We'll just be doing something small". The second one does seem to get a lot of, "If I were to do it all over again, I would do something small too." Which is somewhat reassuring, but it always makes me wonder why they did it any other way in the first place.

For now, I will leave you with a happy wedding thought, and a happy wedding idea. The photo to the left is from Once Wed and really is a perfect picture of how I picture Zach and I on our wedding day. Well, maybe without the bow tie. Otherwise it looks perfect. Anyone know where that dress comes from?!