Dress-up Doll: Part I

When I was at home a few weeks ago I went to a couple of bridal stores and tried on dresses. It was a very strange experience to say the least. Normally I buy my clothes at places like Target, Macy's, or JC Penny... I just go in there and go "hmm... I need pants." Then I go to the "pants" area and I find some pants and I put them on. Then I look in the mirror in the dressing room (which, btw, I am in alone) and go, "good pants" or "bad pants" and then I buy them (or don't). Although, I suppose I should preface this with: first I look in the "sale" section for said pants because I am a cheap-a**.

However, when you go wedding dress shopping this isn't exactly the process that you go through. When you go into a wedding dress store you have to "sign in/up" because they track the dresses you're interested in (I think?). Then you're assigned a "bridal consultant" who is going to find dresses you might be interested in and (I did not realize this) help you put them on.

Originally I was planning to sew my own dress, but as it turns out, there aren't too many patterns for wedding dresses. I also have a very specific look I want and there aren't any dresses that are even similar enough that I could alter. And... I'm not an excellent seamstress. I'm good, but not great so whatever I make wouldn't be as nice as what I would be seeing in the stores. So, plan number two. I sketched out the type of dress I am looking for and brought it in to the bridal stores.

When I got to the store, I showed my picture to the consultant and they tried to come up with dresses that might match what I was looking for. The look I want is fairly uncommon so there wasn't anything that matched perfectly so I ended up trying on a couple of different styles to figure out what I was really looking for.

I went to David's Bridal first. When the consultant showed me to the dressing room she asked me my bra and pants sizes. Um... what? I assumed this had to do with the size of the dress or something. Nope... This was actually for a bra .. thingy... to use to wear when trying on dresses. It was like a girdle or something, super tight and constricting and I couldn't put it on by myself because there were like a million hooks and eyes up the back. Bridal checklist: Feel like a smushed sausage? Check.

After I was decked out in my excellent smushy girdle-bra, the consultant brought in some dresses. She helped me put them on (which was weird) and I felt like a cupcake. It didn't really help that sizes around 2 and 4 are not really common so the dresses were a tad big. I couldn't believe trying on some of those huge poofy dresses you see in pictures, I felt lost in pertty much everything I tried on. I didn't feel like a beautiful princess, I felt like a kid playing dress-up and it didn't feel all that great.

I didn't find anything that looked like I had imagined and nothing had that "OMG I AM SO BEAUTIFUL" reaction. I'd need to continue with the dress search.

Cheers,
Red