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A few months after the engagement Momma Coyote, MOH D, and I went to a bridal show. I don’t really even know why we went—I guess because everyone in the world was telling me to and all the cool kids are doing it and I give in to peer pressure like that. (Do as I say, not as I do!)
The bridal show was half fun, half overwhelming. Some people like the attention. Me? Not so much.
First of all, the place was INSANE. It was soooo crowded with booths and brides and PEOPLE. And honestly, all of those vendors kiiiiind of felt like vultures to me. Oh, and heaven forbid you even gave them a sideways glance…they freakin’ pounced! They either wanted to book you on the spot or have you write down your life story on their stupid sign-on sheet. I know, I know…they’re just doing their jobs. But yeesh, let a bride breathe!
OK, so as usual I’m overreacting. I did meet many pleasant vendors, but the reality is I am a social recluse. I prefer to just sit in front of the TV watching Boy Meets World reruns (ABC Family from 7–8 AM—go DVR it right now!) and checking out WeddingWire reviews on my laptop. Let’s be honest here…who doesn’t?!
One day, I was Googling my wedding dress for fun. In the results, I came across the usual assortment of pictures that I had seen on many prior occasions. Yes, that’s right, I Google my dress for fun on a regular basis - please tell me I am not the only one?
But on this particular occasion I also came across an article that caught my glance. You see, the image that went along with this article was not the standard model shot of my dress, nor was it any of the shots of real brides I had gushed over already.
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| Article from VWonWeddings / Image from Anna-be.com |
In the article, Vera Wang explains her design inspiration, and the above picture is her sketch of the dress. Maybe I’m crazy, but I thought it was so cool when I came across this!
So I recently picked up the latest copy of Martha Stewart Weddings and was paging through it with the Mister. I thought I could entice him into a game of “which do you like best” but he was not biting. I even had a really easy page with only two dresses on it that were totally different:
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| Image from Winter 2012 Martha Stewart Weddings |
After a bit of prodding Mr. Aardvark considered the picture above and said, “Well, they both look exactly alike!” I about fell out of my chair! I mean these two dresses may have been similar but exactly alike!? I don’t think so.
I quickly gave up on “Which do you like best” and was just flipping though for my own enjoyment when I came to the picture below.
Read more…
After a nice time at Designer Loft, I decided to walk a couple of blocks to David’s Bridal to continue on the dress hunt. I arrived without an appointment at around two and waited about half an hour before seeing the inside of a changing room—not so bad. My attendent was from Santo Domingo, and after some quick bonding over our shared Caribbean heritage, she asked me to pick out dresses from the catalog to try on, as many as I wanted. You should never say that to a bride! I went a little crazy and asked to try on about a dozen or so. Some are real contenders, while others are real nightmares. On to pictures…
Dress#1: Was my favorite in catalog pictures, but too matronly on me.
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I spent two weeks of my summer vacation visiting Lil Boa (my MOH), who lives in New York City and is an advertising student (she’s the artsy one in the family), to do some sisterly bonding. After a couple of days of staying home while she went out to work, I decided to be productive. My version of productiveness is bridal-gown shopping by myself. I hunted down the nearest bridal shop, which turned out to be Designer Loft. Luckily I could drop in without an appointment that day because they were having an open house. (Thank you, dress gods!)
After arriving, I quickly explained my bridal vision to the attendant, who in turn became very committed to help me achieve it and was so helpful throughout the afternoon. She picked out about eight dresses for me (all Jenny Packham), four of which I deemed decent enough to photograph.
Dress #1. This one was the attendant’s favorite…hence the reason there is a photo of it; I really didn’t like it. It made me feel matronly and old.
Dress #1 front
In my wedding-warped world, a nightmare consists of SYTTD streaming 24/7 and the consultants in my mind asking “How do you want to look on your wedding day?” over and over and over…
Who would have thought a simple question could be so terrifying!
My bridal attire will be forever immortalized in wedding pictures, video, and memories, and I will be standing up in front of 100 people all looking straight at me, so I better look good. The definition of looking good can vary from bride to bride; some brides say they want to look sexy, some want to look hot, some want to be a princess for a day. For my wedding I want to go in a different direction: not particularly sexy (I’m leaving sexy for the LBD hanging unworn in the closet) or hot (that’s what I feel like in sweaty exercise clothing) and definitely not like a princess.
I want to walk down the aisle and have heads turn…and for people to gasp as they see me. I want them to feel like the heavens have opened up and dropped me on the chapel floor. I want to float down the aisle in a happy light bliss and have my dress reflect that exact feeling. That feeling that all is right in the world and you could just float off into the sunset, hand in hand with the love of your life.
With that incredibly cheesy picture in mind, I have pored over magazines, websites, and blogs in search of the perfect light, airy dress that moves beautifully and will give me the ethereal, angelic look I’m going for.
The top contenders for fulfilling my bridal-gown dream are:
Image via San Patrick
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I didn’t want to waste time thinking of a clever title for this post… I’ve kept the dress from you for way too long (WARNING: lots of self-indulgent photos ahead). Hive, please say hello to my dress, Maldives by Reverie, Melissa Sweet:
Personal photo, after final alterations
I went through quite the journey to find this baby. There were times when I honestly had no idea what I would be wearing on our wedding day. I just couldn’t get a clear idea of what I wanted. Then, one day while obsessively browsing dresses online, something caught my eye. The first time I saw *the* dress was in a photo shoot on Kristen Weaver’s blog, and it was lust at first sight:
In the two bridal salons I visited, the sales associates made sure to tell my mom and me that even if we didn’t buy a dress from their salon, we should NEVER purchase a gown online.
“You will get a ‘dress’ made out of cheap polyester with sequins instead of rhinestones, and it will be shipped in an envelope as big as your laptop. It will be hideous.”
“You get what you pay for online! CHEAP DRESSES!”
“Those dresses are tacky, cheap, and horribly ugly. They are horrific.”
I’ve heard it all. The scare tactics worked pretty well on my mom, but the fact that both of the bridal salons made a point of saying this to me made me wonder: What are they scared of? If I order a dress online and the dress is as horribly tacky and ugly as they say, I’d have to come back to their store and purchase a rush-order dress anyway. This would therefore generate them more income…so why do they care? Are there online dresses that could rival the quality of the bridal-salon dresses? What are they afraid of?
I’m not looking to get into the debate of whether creating a replica dress is “ripping off” the original creator’s design. But I’ve done some research and these dresses are the “ugly and tacky” replica dresses I was so strongly warned against.
I can’t type those words without thinking of this song!
P.S. - that is Matthew Morrison (of Glee) who was in the original cast of Broadway’s Hairspray (which I got to see when I was 16 with that original cast!! Wow, that was almost 10 years ago. I’m old 
)
OK, back to the point of this post. It takes two people to get married, but I’ve found it takes two to plan the wedding as well. And no, my partner in planning is not Mr Elk. (Personal Photos)
When I shop for everyday clothing, I rarely try things on. Exception: jeans and bras. But things like shirts, and dresses—I can just look at them and know whether or not they will work on my frame and whether the size is correct. I’m not sure how I’ve developed this talent (perhaps the years of shopping and mounds of clothes I’ve accumulated alongside my shopaholic mom?), but…it works for me. If I were to give a completely unscientific estimate of how often a piece I don’t try on doesn’t fit/work…I’d say less than 5%. I have a pretty good eye! As it is with most clothes, I had a pretty good idea of what style of wedding dress would look good on me and what wouldn’t. Despite being a plus-size bride, I’m very proportional for my size and have a smaller waist. I’m lucky because I’m 5′10″ and my height balances my size. I do have larger hips, so I know I want to “cover those up” (i.e., I won’t be going for any mermaid gowns!).
Other than that, I had an overwhelming feeling that A-line or modified A-line gowns would look the best on me. Here’s the other kicker: I want lace. I’ve known I wanted a lace wedding dress since I was a little girl, and with a lace-themed wedding…I mean, I wanted a lace dress. No, make that needed a lace dress. (If we add some tulle in, I may love it even more…)
Now ladies, I’ve heard horror story after horror story about plus-size wedding-dress shopping. So I called up two of the more “upscale” bridal salons in Calgary, hoping they would have more diverse sample sizes. I made appointments during a weekend my mom came up specifically to dress shop. I didn’t want to go with Fiancee Eagle (she went without me and I haven’t seen her dress!), and I didn’t want to go with my bridal party just yet. Why? Because I was scared of looking like a fool if none of the dresses fit me.
Here are some dresses that I would say yes to without hesitation…
I love the top of this dress.
Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Michael and Anna Costa
The way this dress is wrapped looks so soft and elegant, but it still has a modern flair.
Once again I have left you hanging—my bad. I explained my excitement of getting the phone call that my dress had arrived, but then I never shared photos of me in my dress. Granted, I shared photos of the sample gown, which luckily was remarkably similar to the final product, but for the sake of full disclosure here is a quick recap of the fashion show I had when my family came in town last month.
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| Image via The Daily Puppy |
I must say, it was a very surreal feeling to be slipping into my dress.
A few weeks after I won the Upon a Star contest, I was scheduled to fly down to Charleston to get my Jorge Manuel wedding gown at the beautiful Maddison Row bridal salon. I took the day before off from work and went to tour the DC Design House, since I was flying out of one of the DC airports. I didn’t realize there would be a wedding connection to doing that, but it turned out that Filene’s Running of the Brides was happening nearby! I saw family trying to take a picture across from the store and noticed the girl in the middle had a garment bag in her arms. I offered to take a picture of the entire group and congratulated them on finding a dress. They were ecstatic and said they drove for hours to get there. I thought it was an interesting precursor to what happened the next day when I went to Charleston…
Image from Maddison Row’s website / Photo by Juliet Elizabeth Photography
The other day, I told you about my trip to Hitched in Georgetown and how I added Jorge Manuel to the list of designers I liked after seeing his name on the salon’s website. I started gobbling up everything I could find online about Jorge because his dresses were unlike any I had seen before. While many of the silhouettes were traditional, the details were so different! I thought his dresses looked like pieces of art.
I had been searching for dresses with quirky or whimsical details and while many of the dresses I tried on were beautiful, none seemed to have a very special or original look. The Jorge Manuel gowns had me excited. The fashion lover in me liked them a lot and I also felt excited about them. Perhaps I was feeling the emotions that many brides feel when they find their dress?
Look at the detail on that train! / The Indus by Jorge Manuel
I tried on The Emerald gown at Hitched and it was a wee bit too slinky for me since I’m a little self-conscious about my hips. I kept searching and reading whatever I could about Jorge and his dresses.
Read more…
My first foray into dress shopping was prompted by a friend who was writing an article for a regional magazine’s wedding issue. I wasn’t really looking for my dress. I was just there to give my friend some photographs of a bride shopping at a local bridal shop.
That experience got me more excited to find my dress, so I selected three salons in the general region that carried the designers I had liked when I did my internet research. At the two salons in Washington, DC, I made weekday appointments and took the first appointment available each day. Without an entourage, I was hoping to try on as many dresses as possible to zero in on a few that would work for me. I wasn’t fixated on “the one” because I was pretty sure I’d see plenty of dresses that I would love.
My three shopping destinations / Photo by Miss Mink
At Hitched in Georgetown, I was hoping to try on some Amsale and Anne Barge dresses.
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