The Dress

I went into the whole dress shopping thing with a pretty solid idea of what I wanted.  Nothing with sparklies, no beaded accents, just a simple sheath dress.  Something like this Nicole Miller gown:

Very simple, but beautiful and feminine (to me, anyway).  

I'm so glad that I tried on dresses of all styles, even the big "cake frosting" dresses, because I ended up falling in love with something very different from that sheath dress (but not a "cake frosting" dress).

The dress that I fell in love with was $1000.  Some of you may say, "That's really not bad for a wedding gown," to which I will reply, "It's a f***ing dress!  That I am only going to wear once!" while shaking my hands emphatically.  The only thing that I own that is worth more than that gown is my car.  Oh, and now, my engagement ring.  (Which is worth much more than my P.O.S. car, incidentally.)  Nothing else I own is worth anywhere near $1000.

My point is, I was having a very hard time finding a way to justify spending $1000 on a bunch of white fabric.  So, I Googled the style number of the dress and found Ann Bridal Gowns.  This company is one of many companies that make copies of designer dresses for a fraction of the designer price. 

My designer wedding gown copy cost $300.  Which is still much more than I would ever want to spend on a bunch of white fabric that I am going to wear once, but, wow, what a deal!  

The gown was delivered about a month and a half after I ordered it.  It seemed to have been shipped from China.  (It's not all "Engrish" on the website, but there were what appeared to be Chinese characters on the packaging.)  When the company was contacted with questions via email, they got back to me in a timely fashion.

The moral of the story for all future brides is this:  1)  Try on dresses of all different styles, even styles you wouldn't expect to like, and take note of the style number of Thee Dress so you can shop around.  2)  Don't be afraid of a copy!  Having the designer label in my dress would have cost me another $700. 

Take that, Wedding Industry!

Meetings

Brandon & I had two very productive wedding meetings this week!  We are so fortunate to have such a wealth of creative people in our lives.

On Tuesday we met with our still photographers and filmmakers.  I am blown away by how open they are to our crazy ideas and, further, how they took those crazy ideas and just ran with them!  If everything goes as planned, all of our guests are going to be attending a wedding unlike most.  

Saturday (yesterday) we met with our "Wedding Production Team."  This team is comprised of some members of our wedding party as well as select friends and family who want to help organize and plan the wedding.  Again, it's amazing how receptive everyone is to our offbeat ideas!  Everyone seems really excited about the theme of the wedding and our vision for the whole event!

So today I feel a little less overwhelmed.  I still have 7,548,221,364 things to do (or so it feels like--and instead, I'm blogging) but I don't feel like so much of it is on my shoulders anymore.  

**exhale**