Wedding Blog

Originally, I planned to have a friend of mine who is a fashion designer/seamstress make my wedding dress. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but as the wedding date drew closer, I realized that I had put zero thought into what kind of dress I wanted and I had no idea where to start.

When I went home to visit my family this past Christmas, everyone kept asking me if I had picked out a dress yet. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I only had about 8 months to go, and that my friend might not even have time to make the dress as she is a very busy lady.  She offered to make the dress as a gift to me so I also wanted to make sure I gave her plenty of time so it wasn’t as much of a burden. Even though 8 months seemed like forever to me, I was already a little behind the mark. I hadn’t even looked at many bridal magazines at that point… I was such a slacker.

After the holidays, I talked to my designer friend and she said that I should go and start trying on dresses so that I could get an idea of what types of dress styles looked good on me. I felt like a total jerk because she had been trying to get me going on doing this, since she first offered to make the dress right after I got engaged, but in my procrastinating fashion, I somehow managed to keep putting it off.

Eventually my friend very gently hinted that I had kind of waited too long to start designing a custom dress… especially if I wanted something elaborate. I decided that it would just be easier at that point to buy a dress instead and she offered to help me with the alterations and accessories.

So I started looking around for bridal boutiques in Chicago. There are so many that it was kind of hard to narrow them down. I went to a fairly popular and well-known bridal salon downtown for my very first appointment - and it was AWFUL! I won’t even go into detail about it, but it was kind of a traumatic experience. Part of it was because I had no idea what to expect (for example, I didn’t know I had to strip down to my delicates in front of a stranger), and part of it was because the salesperson that I worked with was a big old jerk who was trying to make me feel bad and pressure me into making an impulse buy. She was also very rude to my sister (who went with me) because she is a plus size gal. She said that they didn’t really have any bridesmaids dresses that would be “appropriate” for her to try on. The nerve! I left there in such a bad mood and so discouraged about dress shopping.

It didn’t get me down for too long, though, and I used most of my winter break between semesters searching for a dress that I liked and that I could afford. It took a bit longer than I thought, but I found a lot of great boutiques and dresses to pick from. I am the kind of person that really, really, really thinks things over before spending a lot of money… so it ended up taking me until April to make a final decision. That is just a little ridiculous since I got engaged well over a year before that but, like I said, I’m an indecisive slacker.

Stay tuned for the next episode in which I will show you the highlights, and low-lights, of my wedding dress shopping adventures.