Monday, December 29, 2008
Another Dress Quest
On one of our first trips to look at wedding gowns my mother found a dress abandoned on her chair. It was a simple tea-length dress in dark teal satin with a ribbon and subtle bow under the empire waistline. It would be perfect for my bridesmaids. Too bad it took me months to realize it.
Now, I had my reasons for shopping around. I hadn't chosen the first bridal gown or the first reception location that I liked and both of those decisions had paid off, so I wanted to look at other bridesmaid dresses before committing to one that we found so quickly and so randomly. In the following weeks my mother and bridesmaids and I found a number of possibilities online; most were even on clearance, which was actually the problem. With my bridesmaids scattered along the east coast it was impossible to have them all try on the dresses and I wasn't about to purchase dresses that might not be available in the necessary sizes or that couldn't be returned. Despite all of our searching and emailing we never found the right dress.
By late December I was getting worried that I wouldn't find dresses in time so I returned to the bridal shop circuit. Plus I was in Lancaster along with two of my bridesmaids, which was definitely the most of us that would ever be in one place until the wedding. I decided to scout out a few options with my mother before dragging them along, so one evening we traveled to York to visit David's Bridal. They had the dark teal color that I wanted, though like every bridal store they had their own name for it: "Oasis." Hey, I figured, if Kyle won't let me have Oasis on the music list ("I thought we said no whining" were his exact words) maybe I can have Oasis dresses. Unfortunately not every style of dress was available in Oasis, in fact the selection was pretty sparse, and the only Oasis dresses that I really liked were, surprise surprise, being discontinued. Our trip to York was essentially a bust.
The next day we returned to the Lancaster Alfred Angelo store, which was the site of the original bridesmaid dress and had the added benefit of offering every dress in every color. They called their shade of dark teal "tealness" - the fashion thinktank really had to work hard for that one. My mother and I couldn't actually find the original dress, which I figured served us right, but we did find two other similar options that I liked very much. One was almost the original dress but had a rhinestone belt instead of a ribbon, and the second dress had stripes of contrasting fabric on the cuff, midsection, and bottom of the dress that would echo the style of my gown.
With renewed hope I called up Liz and Steph and made plans to visit Alfred Angelo with them on Saturday. When I walked in Liz and Steph were already going through the racks...and they had found the original dress! It was a good thing too, since I found out later that the dress is only available in stores and doesn't show up online or in catalogs (so I edited my own photo of the dress for your viewing pleasure, though the bow is missing). Everyone in the store was very welcoming and helpful even though they were incredibly busy. A slew of brides and their entourages had taken over all of the dressing rooms and couches but an associate offered us the steam closet as a changing room and I was content to camp out on the store floor. Once we managed to hang the dresses on a random chain dangling from the ceiling Liz and Steph were nice enough to try on all of them, some of which were comically large (thank goodness for clips!).
At the end of our comic fashion show all three of us agreed that the first dress, the dress that I could have had them order months ago, was the best one. It looked great on both of them, it fit the feel of the wedding, it didn't scream "bridesmaid," it was the most comfortable, and while not as inexpensive as those risky online clearance options it was reasonably priced at $139. We held up every possibly swatch to the dress and decided that it would look perfect with a pale robin's-egg-blue ribbon. I made hurried phone calls to Sabrina and Katelyn - "Hi, so, um, remember the very first of more than a dozen emails about dresses that I sent you a long, long time ago? Do you have any problem if we order that first dress? The first of many, many dark teal tea-length ones?..." - and whether they knew what on earth I was referencing or not they humored a crazy bride-to-be and agreed to the dress. Liz and Steph ordered their dresses then and there and Sabrina and Katelyn will get their measurements at a store near them and then call Alfred Angelos with their order. Fingers crossed that everything will run along smoothly from there!
After I enthusiastically crossed "choose bridesmaid dresses" off of my mental list the three of us headed next door to Panera Bread where we caught up over hot chocolate and pastries. Steph should definitely write a book about all of the crazy experiences that she has daily working as a property manager...not that Liz and I are surrounded by the sanest of people in med and grad school either. It was nice to have extra time with Steph and Liz and it was definitely one of those days when it felt really good to be home. Plus, I'll admit, I really like checking things off of my list! Next up: finding a hairstylist and a dj.
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