Wedding Blog

It’s finally here! The dress post!!

Let me catch you up on what’s happened so far in Miss Chick’s search for The One.

It all started three months after I got engaged. I had been living in post engagement euphoria and was procrastinating actual planning of any kind. I believe my exact words were, “maybe it’ll all just come together on its own?” Mama Chang asked me about why I haven’t been talking about the wedding, if I was excited, and what kind of dress I would like. I was trying to prevent in advance from being a bridezilla and so I said, “oh you know, I don’t want to stress about it. I’m sure I’ll find a dress that I like. It doesn’t have to be THE dress, you know? I’ll just find something in my price range and I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

But it wasn’t.

(Mr. Chick, STOP READING HERE! Do not click on read more! DO NOT!!!! You hear me?! Love you.)

My sister MOH and BM cousin Lil’ J (yay Gossip Girl reference!) came down to Houston from San Francisco to help me shop. I had almost decided on a Judd Waddell dress. I wanted to try on dresses in stores, then find a used one on eBay or in a sample sale.

By May I still hadn’t found a used version of the Waddell dress, and so my parents came into town to help me look again. I almost ALMOST bought this dress by LaSposa, but since I had been planning a trip to New York for the Kleinfeld sample sale, I held off.

I really liked this dress, but I wasn’t sure if it was THE one. Plus it was about $800 more than what I wanted to spend. And I also wasn’t sure if the material was the best.

I also tried on this Monique Lhuillier Dress (Angelina) in hopes that even though it had a hefty $5500 price tag, that I would find it either at the Kleinfeld sale or maybe on eBay. The dress had just come off the runway so the bust was not lined in order for it to be more “edgy”, but the nice sales lady assured me that I could line it:

I got the major zha-zha-zuuus when I tried on this dress!! I could not stop feeling the lace with my hands. It was exquisite. Sigh!

Then came the Kleinfeld sample sale! It was a weekend of madness. My family lives in New Jersey, so I flew to New Jersey, had some fun with my parents and sister, then my sister and I took the train to New York the night before and stayed the night with BM Jules. We woke up bright and early the next morning and arrived to be third in line!

My parents came later that afternoon when we actually got to go inside the store! There were TV crews filming me for Say Yes to the Dress (I wasn’t the main story so I didn’t get interviewed, but they kept filming me nonetheless, I’m not sure why), I got to meet Randy, and it was all so very exciting! Long story short, I bought a dress!

It’s a beautiful Marisa silk organza with lace overlay dress:

My entire family was ecstatic that I had one major thing checked off of my wedding to do list. I loved sharing the experience of buying my wedding dress with my family, and I would not have traded that for the world! However, I was under some time pressure, and the 200 brides rushing around me did not help any matter. I thought I had bought a beautiful dress, and I pushed aside the little voice that said, “but is it THE ONE?”

Four months later, I tried on the dress again in order to have some pictures taken. I’m not sure what happened but all of a sudden it just clicked. This was not my dress. During these four months, I kept going back to the pictures of the Monique Lhuillier dress. I could not get that dress out of my head!

I called the parental units and asked hesitantly if they would be incredibly hurt if I sold the dress and got another one. Their reactions were a bit mixed, but in the end they said I should do whatever makes me happy… I’ve since put it up on various websites, including the Weddingbee Classifieds. Anyone want it?

So, I am going back to the Monique Lhuillier dress! I didn’t want to buy another sample dress because 1) I wanted a new dress and 2) the sample dresses are still above my budget. So, I’ve come to the conclusion that I must have it made.

Here are some more pictures of my the one:

Look how ecstatic I am! I think that’s how you know.

Remember the unlined bust? Well, I later went to Louise Blum to try it on again, and here is how it would look lined:

This picture was taken months after the previous pictures. And look, still very happy!!

I have a couple of leads on where to get the dress made… but nothing solid. The materials alone would cost me about $500. So I only have about $500 to spend for the labor. Is this a reasonable budget? What do you guys think?

Were you a more-than-one-dress bride? How did you resolve your dress issues? Did you sell the original one(s) or did you end up keeping them all? If you sold it, did you make your money back?