Weddingbee Blog

When I last left you, my long-beloved dream dress was “no longer available” at Kleinfeld. The design is part of “Alita Graham’s Kleinfeld Kollection.” I’m going to ignore how badly that second ’K’ makes me shudder, and simply say that it stands to reason that it would only be available at Kleinfeld. The line, as it turns out, is available in five places beyond the Manhattan flagship store. I made a little visual aid so you can see the quest that lay before me:

I might have considered flying to any of these places as well, but I worried about getting the dress back with me on a plane. Lightweight wedding dresses are few and far between, and I’ll be damned if I would let the airport security near the delicate beading and diamond white chiffon.

First email stop?

B.Hughes Bridal in Nashville, TN, just a four hour drive. An extremely prompt and apologetic email from B.Hughes found that they did not carry the dress. And you know what? I wasn’t even surprised. The design is, like, two years old—why would they have it? Kleinfeld, the store for which it was designed doesn’t even carry it anymore. I fell in love with the Bermuda Triangle of wedding dresses.

Second email stop: J and B Bridals in Chambersburg, PA. I was promptly rewarded with this:

People: THAT DRESS WAS MY SIZE. Now, have you ever read such a sweet, accommodating email in your life? I had not. I still have not. I emailed her back right away to take her up on her offer. She contacted Kleinfeld, they were happy to send the dress back, and I had an appointment for two weekends later.

Let me just rephrase what transpired:

J&B had Kleinfeld ship the dress back to the store that it had just come from so that I could drive 7 hours to try it on.

J&B Bridals: FRIEND TO BRIDES EVERYWHERE. I felt like a crazy for prompting such a fuss just so I could try on a dress. I mean…I am crazy, and I am a bride, but I’m not generally a Crazy Bride. I had to know though. Even if the dress didn’t look right on me, even if it wasn’t what I imagined, I had to try it on so I could get past it in my mind and move on to another dress.

Full steam ahead, Chambersburg, PA!

Anybody else take weirdly extreme measures to find a dress?