Weddingbee Blog

My first experience with dress shopping was pretty casual—no appointments, no reservations, just me and a few malls. I wasn’t planning to buy a dress yet, but I wanted to at least get an idea of what works on me. See, even when I was at my thinnest, I still had a hard time buying dresses for anything. I have big boobs, so I usually have to size up to fit them into anything, and I don’t have much of a waist, so underneath the boobs I’m kind of a rectangle. It’s frustrating.

Also, I was hoping to find a non-traditional dress—something from a department store instead of a bridal shop.

My first stop was the Franklin Mills Mall, which is a discount/outlet mall in northeast Philly. They have a Neiman Marcus Last Call outlet and an Off 5th Saks outlet. I used to see formal dresses there all the time, when I didn’t need one. So I trekked out there and, unfortunately, I found nothing. They had a handful of formal dresses, but none that were white or ivory. I went into the BCBG outlet and tried on a couple of short ivory dresses, but they were way too casual. Cute, though.

But since I drove 30 minutes outside of the city to hit up the mall, I decided to go into Group USA, a women’s formalwear store.

I’ve walked by it several times but never went inside, so I don’t know why I decided to hit them up and walk to the back to the bridal section. I looked around at the wedding gowns and was thoroughly unimpressed. But then I saw one that was maybe OK. Everyone tells you to try on everything because you never know, so I asked a saleswoman if I needed an appointment. She said no and got me the dress in my size (which is two to three sizes bigger than my street size, which was kind of discouraging even though I know it doesn’t mean anything) and set me up in a dressing room.

She left me alone to put it on myself, which was nice. There was no mirror in the dressing room, so I had to walk out and stand on the pedestal in front of the three-way mirror. And then something weird happened.

You guys. I sort of liked it.

Yeah, the super-traditional wedding gown from the prom store. I kind of got a bit giddy over it. Maybe it was because it was the first time I’d ever, in my life, tried on a wedding gown. It was totally not my style, but it was so much fun to try it on!

Here’s me in it. It’s a bad photo because the poor old lady was having a lot of trouble taking a photo with my phone. It’s blurry and the lighting is poor. But you can get the idea.

And here it is on the model:

Photo from Group USA

It wasn’t my style, and I had no desire to buy it or anything like it. But trying it on was seriously a blast.

Afterward, I drove 40 more minutes to the King of Prussia Mall outside of Philly. This is a more upscale mall that has stores like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, etc.

Unfortunately, most of the stores were a bust. And it was really, really frustrating. Online, those department stores carry many white or ivory formal gowns. In person, there were hardly any. Bloomingdale’s had the biggest selection, but I couldn’t find a single bridal-type dress in anything bigger than a size eight. That really pissed me off. The average American woman is a size 12–14. They’re alienating a huge portion of the population.

I had slightly better luck at Lord & Taylor, where I found a very pretty Oleg Cassini dress for WAY under my budget. I’d need a bigger size to fit the bazooms, but you can get the idea from this photo:

I didn’t love it, but it is much more what I had in mind for my wedding gown: a simple, flowy, chiffon dress with an empire waist.

Anyway, that was my first try. I was hoping for a department-store dress, but I think I may have to go the traditional bridal-shop route, since those dresses have more support for my bod.

Would you consider buying your dress off the rack at a department store?