Wedding Blog

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…

Every time I think of buying my gown, I think of that quote. Not because I naturally have a lisp or anything (although that’s so cute, and I almost wish I *did* have one).

But because everyone who’s asked me about my nuptial apparel has inevitably been interested in what TYPE of gown I’d be buying, given it’s going to be a Destination Wedding, a.k.a. DW… which has led me to think of it as… “The DWess”.

‘Cause, you know, that’s how the Impressive Clergyman would say it.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but contrary to popular belief (or to the belief of people who have seen my corpulent collection of bridal magazines), I wasn’t one of those gals who had been dreaming about their creamy concoction of a wedding dress since they were ten years old.

Really.

I swear!

But I admit, of all the planning this far, it has been the MOST fun of all.

I got engaged in October and a few weeks later, Mama Sea Breeze flew to Vancouver to visit me for a week. Of course, it was the perfect opportunity to go wedding dress shopping.

And yes, I did just say ‘dress’ instead of ‘DWess’. Because at this point, we had not yet decided we were going to have a DW. (Oh yes, you can bet your boobies there will be more on that later.)

In fact, we hadn’t really thought at all much about where/when/how the actual wedding day would take place. But since my Mama visits so rarely, I had to seize the opportunity.

My first attempt at dress shopping happened on a lovely Saturday afternoon. I had invited along Mr Breezy’s mom and older sister (not to be confused with my bridesmaid SIL, who is Mr Breezy’s younger, child-less sister).

If anyone didn’t believe my claim that I didn’t know the first thing about weddings, well, they will after they hear this. Because here was my process:

1. Tell Mama Sea Breeze we were going to go dress shopping. Danced around the living room with her.

2. Phoned mom-in-law (MIL) and sis-in-law (SIL) to ask them to come dress shopping with us. Squealed in excitement over phone.

3. Went to yellowpages.ca and looked up ‘wedding dress’ + ‘vancouver’. Wrote down names which a) looked familiar from my experiences flipping through the pages of Real Weddings magazines (Vancouver edition), and b) were close by, and made a list of stores to hit.

4. Picked up MIL and SIL and drove to first store that was closest to us: Clara Couture. Finally found parking, walked up sidewalk teeming with excitement, found out it was closed.

5. Drove to second store: Bride To Be. Found out it went out of business and had been closed for God knows how long.

6. Drove to third store: Bisou Bridal. Walked in, got ignored for ten minutes (and it was a small place). Finally was acknowledged and, granted, apologized to for the, er, ignorement. Got asked if we had an appointment. Felt foolish as we said no, but as we left, felt better about it since we saw all the dresses anyways and weren’t enamored.

7. Made mental note to make call ahead and make appointments next time.

8. Went to Starbucks for an injection of caffeine and to strategize. Decided I owed these darling, loving ladies who I just schlepped all around town the pleasure of seeing me in at least one white dress that day.

9. Drove to Bello Wedding World which I knew for sure still existed and was open because I drove by it all the time. Didn’t see anything that floated my boat, but tried on a couple dresses just so Mama Sea Breeze could have the joy of seeing me in a white dress.

10. Got all teary over Mama SB getting all teary. It was a good moment.

11. Went home and realized we hadn’t really made any headway. Felt inadequate in my wedding dress shopping techniques.

12. Started telling every single girl I know about the funny (and pathetic) shopping experience. As the recommendations started rolling in, realized that this was what I should have done in the first place–asked for advice!

(To Be Continued)

Anyone else as clueless as I was and therefore had a disastrous experience the first time they went wedding dress shopping?