Weddingbee Blog

When I left you last, I had just tried on Allure Bridals 8601 (she really needs a better name, doesn’t she?). I didn’t come out of the fitting room right away in my third dress, my long-time favorite. I really looked at it first.

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I hadn’t been sure the first time, but I was sure now. Yes, the dress was many sizes too big, but the giant clamps were used appropriately, and the manager I was working with explained to me how the fit would be different in the appropriate size. Amazingly, in a less beat up sample and with more skillful handling, the dress looked beautiful on. It looked perfect. And I loved the dress. It’s kind of hard to get away from that fact, sometimes. I stepped out of the dressing room, decided and determined, no matter how Mama Spaniel reacted.

And it was a good thing I’d braced myself, too, because I got more of the same: cool calculation and unwelcome criticism. I tried on two more dresses while I was there—Maggie Sottero’s Dierdre and WToo’s Eva. I liked Dierdre quite a bit, but that’s a useless feeling when you’ve already found the perfect dress (and it isn’t Dierdre!).

So we talked price a little bit and asked the manager to match the online price of $987, which she said she would confirm while we left to have lunch. Over salads, Mama Spaniel and I discussed our plan for the rest of the day. We decided that we probably didn’t need to keep our second appointment, since I found the dress at the first shop (and the sample was in SO MUCH BETTER SHAPE) and they seemed to offer a price match. We did some calculations, knowing that the $987 Internet price was inclusive of sales tax and shipping costs (as in, there were none of either!) whereas California sales tax would add nearly 10% to the cost of the dress here. We set our limit, out the door, of $1,050 and decided to head back as soon as we finished lunch: if they met it, I’d have a dress. And if they didn’t, we’d go to the other shop. Well. The shop did more than meet the price; they lowered it. We got my dress for $950!

I started wedding planning with an eye to spend $1,200 or less on my wedding dress, and knocked $250 off of that through minimal negotiations. Hooray! After some quick measuring, we discovered that we might need to add some length to the dress so that I wouldn’t be limited to 2″ heels. The manager told us that for three extra inches of length, the additional cost would be $75, putting the dress at $1,025, which was still totally reasonable. Done. We put a $250 deposit on the dress, with the balance due in 90 days. The dress will be in the store this month.

It all felt very anti-climatic, really. I had already known I wanted this dress, and nothing I tried on changed my mind. Wearing it again confirmed it for me. What I really, really wanted was an excited mother telling me how beautiful I looked and acting excited that she was shopping with her only daughter for her only wedding dress. But I didn’t get that in the store. Sad face!

After leaving the shop, $250 lighter and one contract for a wedding dress(!!!!!) heavier, Mama Spaniel wanted to go to the mall on some errand. I was shockingly tired after the relief of buying my dress, though—it’s funny how we sometimes don’t recognize a stressful situation when we’re in it, when it’s a happy kind of stress! At some point in the car, she asked me if I was excited that I got my dress.

Kind of?

“I just wanted you to be more into it. I didn’t feel like you were that excited about it, and that’s what I really wanted from you today.”

Her response surprised me.

“Of course I was excited. Did you want me to cry? I’ll do plenty of that at your wedding. I just wanted to help you and I could do that if I didn’t get too emotional…”

I don’t remember the rest of what she said—it wasn’t really important because I finally began to understand what she actually meant. I’d been unfair in my assumptions: I thought her aloofness was from not caring. But she didn’t want to be the mom who gets emotional and tears up; she wanted to be the mom who is involved and who helps make decisions. She might not give me what I want sometimes, but she is doing her best to give me what she thinks I want. And I have to start giving her credit for that.

We were on our way back to my apartment when it finally hit me, and I felt this huge rush of excitement. Sure, I wasn’t standing in front of a mirror in the dress, but we bought it. It’s ordered and on its way. I’m getting married in less than seven months! I just got my wedding dress! I blurted it out in the car, and do you know what my mom did? She told me I was beautiful, and she cried.

How did your mom react when you found your dress?