Weddingbee Blog

I realize I haven’t mentioned my wedding dress at all yet, possibly because there’s no exciting story. I saw it in a magazine, said I wanted that one, tried it on 2.5 years before the wedding, went back a year later after I first tried it on, and Mama Giraffe bought it for me. I didn’t change my mind, worry, or spend hours looking at dresses. It’s just not my style. I hate trying on clothes normally, and I’m far from a fashionista so the whole dress process was 100% me.

That being said, wedding planning has made me crazy and I’ve had wedding superstition all in my head. I’m convinced it’s bad luck for Mr. G to see my dress, so I’m keeping it under wraps until the big day.

But then, come to think of it, I haven’t shared my bridesmaids’ dresses either…frankly, because I don’t like to think of them. I’m going to be honest with you, here, Hive. Bear with me.

See, shopping for bridesmaids’ dresses (BMDs) was not a good experience. There was lot of drama, arguing, anger, and tears. I’m normally a strong person, but I spent the end of day crying, and I could only be comforted by BMs Mang and Chipotle.

It was horrible and a mess, and I don’t like to think about that day. It was nothing like I had imagined it would be, and it certainly was not fun.

What does this mean? Well as far as the next-to-impossible task of choosing one dress for six different girls, I found it. I mean, I found a dress I loved. It was also way more money than I wanted my girls to spend. This might sound bridezilla of me, but by the end of the day, I was so emotionally exhausted and ready to give up, that I just went with the dress.

Yes, I love the BMDs a lot, but I hate the cost, and sometimes it gets to a point when you have little energy left, and I just hit that point.

But that’s not just it; I have even more of a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.

The BMDs were purchased from House of Brides, a Chicago-land bridal shop. Everyone working there is very nice, and I had visited it once before, when I was just looking. It seemed like a good place to go with, but well…you’ll see.

I’ll be honest, I’m still pretty pissed off about this. At the time of purchase, House of Brides had my BMDslisted on their website for $143 (now they’re available for $111 and my girls’ dresses haven’t even come in yet). Funny story: my girls all paid $207. I called HoB to ask if they’d match their website prices, but they don’t because, “we’re paying for the consultant and all the help they gave us.”

Huh. Seeing as half my girls called in their order so no consultant was even used, and, not to mention that I would’ve used a consultant even if we hadn’t gone with HoB, I don’t know why we have to “pay for one.”  The store, when I brought up the web price to them, did tell me, since I mentioned it, that they would take $15 off.

Why am I ranting to you guys? This is why: if you order of the HoB website, you can use their store for alterations. I asked if I could have my girls just order off the site, and they fed me a bunch of garbage about how all the dresses had to be ordered through the store so they could come in at the same time—it was some BS for sure. Long story short, they totally did it for the money and I totally fell for it. House of Brides has great dresses and a great selection, but if you want to use them, order off their website—nearly all the prices are cheaper.

And that my friends, is why I haven’t been thinking about my BMDs. I’m still hurt about the shopping experience and I’m still bitter (and more so annoyed) at the price.

Oh, and the dress in question? That brown color will be the trim and the rest will be baby blue.

House of Brides

House of Brides

Cute? Definitely. Worth all the headache and heartache? Probably not.

Anybody else have a bad wedding related experience? How did you get over it (because that’s the part I’m having trouble with)?