Weddingbee Blog

I asked my mom to come with me to the first bridal salon since it was in the area, and my dad overheard and sheepishly asked, “Can I come too?”. I thought it was so cute that my dad was actually interested in this stuff, so of course, the two of them tagged along. I brought my trusty SLR with me and instructed my parents the basic uses of it so that they could take pictures of me in the gowns. While I was in the dressing room changing into what I think was my second or third gown, I heard them bickering outside in the waiting room.

Dad: Stop it! Stop!
Mom: Just do it!
Dad: No just sit down she’ll be out soon.
Mom: Just once!
Dad: FINE.

The hilarious thing was that when we got home after trying on 5 gowns, I was flipping through the camera and almost fell off my chair laughing when I saw pictures of my parents. While I was in the dressing room changing, they were taking pictures of each other!! My parents were playing around with the camera and eventually my dad got annoyed at all the picture taking that my mom was doing and that was the conversation I overheard.

(omg, they’re totally going to kill me when they find out that I am posting this!)

Unfortunately for me, my first bridal salon visit was very disappointing. All of their dresses had very heavy beading and it was too much for me. I wanted something simple, and although some of the dresses were pretty, I didn’t feel as if they were for me. My parents’ picture taking skills might have been good, but they were horrible with advice. They liked every dress I tried on and were just as indecisive as I was.

I was also discouraged about the prices of these dresses. For the quality, the cost was more than what I wanted to spend.

I did a bit of research online later that night to get a better sense of what I was looking for, and found that all of the dresses I liked also happened to cost a fortune. Just great. My dress budget was pretty small - We were already spending so much more than we expected. The venue gobbled up most of our budget, and the band was a pretty big splurge. If Mr. Martini and I were going to come out of this one alive, we were going to have to make some cuts somewhere. I didn’t think I’d care much about a dress I was only going to wear once, but I was frustrated. And as a girl that HATES shopping, I was not looking forward to traveling to the ends of the earth in search of THE dress at THE price.

I started looking into renting dresses not long after that, but I really couldn’t find anything at all. Instead I found a whole new world of used dresses from former brides who were looking to sell. At first I was iffy. Final sale? As is? But then thought, these are girls who just got married. I can’t imagine they would want to screw over someone else who is looking for that perfect dress as well.

In the meantime, I made appointments to other bridal shops in the city and started with the largest one, Kleinfield. I actually just wanted to try on a bunch of styles to figure out what I wanted before purchasing a used dress online. At the same time, I had a sliver of hope that in that massive warehouse of a store, there would be one dress just for me.

(Mr. Martini, if you’ve come this far turn around and head back!)

This time, I fired my parents and brought a whole team of three close friends with me to help me decide. After trying on several dresses, I still wasn’t sure about any of them. Then our consultant brought over a Justina McCaffrey dress. It was a cancellation - previously ordered by a bride, then canceled just after the dress had arrived. It was brand new, never worn or altered, and was selling for much lower than the sticker price!

I tried it on, and I couldn’t believe it when it was a perfect fit. It didn’t have any beading, it had pickups throughout the skirt (which is what I wanted). I turned to my three judges. Two of them hated pickups and advised against it, while one loved it and thought it was the perfect dress. I tried on a few others, but kept going back to this one. In the end, everyone agreed that it was the best one for me.

I tried it on with a champagne colored sash and a long veil, and that’s when the tears started. I was told by so many brides that when you find THE dress, you just know. I never understood that because I’ve never felt that with anything I’ve tried on, but when she put the veil on me and handed me a bouquet, it was all over. I had to get it. I asked if my bridal consultant could come down on the price of the dress just a little bit to match my budget. Maybe the tears helped, because after she spoke to her manager I walked out of Kleinfield carrying THE dress at THE price!

I will have to find someone to alter the dress, because I want to change the strapless to a sweetheart bodice, and it is a little bit too long. Also, I will hopefully be shedding a few pounds as well for the wedding and I want to make sure it fits perfectly on my wedding day.

I didn’t want to post pictures because I was scared Mr. Martini would see them by mistake, so I opted to linking the pictures instead. Everyone but Mr. Martini can click on the below links to see the dress. Mr. Martini STAY AWAY!

The Dress
(these are not pictures of me)

Detail 1
Detail 2
Detail 3
Source

Did any of you have any lucky wedding dress finds?