When I got engaged, I was excited about every little detail of wedding planning – tasting cakes, mapping out DIY projects, picking postage for reply cards – pretty much everything, except wedding dress shopping. For some reason, I just wanted to get it over with. I was convinced I was too much of an ice princess to have that tearful “THIS IS THE ONE!” moment. I’ve also inherited my mom’s bargain shopping expertise and challenged myself to buy the cheapest wedding dress possible. So when I heard that my favorite store in the entire world, TARGET, sold wedding dresses… oh, it was on.
Dress #1
I ordered this dress at target.com for the low low price of $90 Part of me wanted it just so I could tell people that I bought my wedding dress for less than a hundred dollars. My future mother in law and one of my bridesmaids were with me when I tried it on and agreed that it looked good on me… but in hindsight, none of us were too excited. Again, I just figured I wasn’t sappy enough to be excited about a dress.{FYI - That thing around my wait is my future mother in law's scarf, used as a stand-in sash}
Dress #2
This one was a little bit more expensive – around $225 – but the thought of being a preppy J. Crew bride was worth it. The dress looked beautiful on the model, and I of course misjudged how it might look on me. If only I could have predicted that it would look like a nightgown on me… I brought this one back to J. Crew as soon as I could.
Dress #3
I kept the Target dress in my closet, but felt I should have the proper dress shopping experience. When I was in my hometown for a weekend, I was able to drag one of my bridesmaids on a quick dress shopping trip. We went to one boutique and to David’s Bridal in two hours, and I probably tried on about 8 dresses, one after the other. The last one I tried on was $99 at the David’s sale, had a sweetheart neckline(which I knew looked good on me), and I was tired of shopping and thought I would never find anything cheaper. So, I bought it – even though it was two sizes too big on me and was covered in litte sparkly beads that I thought were tacky and prom-ish. I just assumed a seamstress could work her magic on it. So, 10 months before the wedding, I had my dress. I returned the Target number, and the song “Polyester Bride” by Liz Phair stopped running through my head.
Dress #4 - 6
It occurred to me, as the weather started getting warmer (which, don’t be jealous, was in the middle of February down here in Louisiana) that my latest wedding dress was going to be heavy and itchy for my outdoor Louisiana reception in the middle of the summer. Time to start shopping for a reception dress! My first pick was this deceivingly pretty white dress, found for $50:
Um, negatory. That one was sent back immediately. {P.S., Ike says hi!}
Next, I decided to take a more expensive approach, and get back to my preppy dream with this J. Crew number:
Looks okay, right? But the response was lukewarm – although it looked okay, it didn’t look bridal. And one of my bridesmaids liked it, but thought it was silly to change into another long dress. So when I found the short version at my local J. Crew, I snatched it up, making it dress number six. And it is at this point in the story that I realize that I actually have owned SEVEN dresses for this wedding. Dress #6 didn’t stay in my possession for very long, because…
Dress #7
As I was leaving J. Crew with my new short white reception dress, I decided to stop in at BCBG. Why? I will never know – I’ve never stepped foot in there because I know I could never afford anything from there. And I thought I was all set with my latest J. Crew purchase, so I wasn’t on the wedding dress hunt anymore. But when I walked into BCBG for who knows what reason, a long white dress hanging in the back of the store caught my eye. I walked to the back of my store and ran my fingers over it, and thought, “This is ridiculous. You have a dress. Leave.” So I did. I got about 50 feet away from the store and realized I had to go back and try it on. And what do you know – there was one left, in my size, light enough to wear to both ceremony and reception, and it was $100 off. And much to my surprise, I had the “feeling” – the can barely stand, can barely walk feeling where I knew this dress was the one. It had to happen with 5 strangers and a storeful of shoppers instead of my nearest and dearest, but it happened! After a few quick Iphone picture emails to my friends, it was mine. I walked straight back across the street to J. Crew and returned Dress #6, and mailed back Dress #5 as soon as I got home.
I should probably also mention that I was looking at $200+ worth of alterations on my David’s Bridal wedding dress – it needed to be hemmed and the bottom was scalloped lace which is apparently a seamstress’s nightmare. Plus I wanted to get rid of the beads, PLUS it needed to be taken in – a lot. Add to that the cost of my reception dress, and my new dress purchase was actually cheaper than what it would have cost to fix the first dress.
So there you have it – now I’m left with two dresses – one of which I’ll be doing my best to sell, and the other I’ll be looking at pictures of myself in for the rest of my life. (You, unfortunately, will have to wait - just in case the fiance ever stumbles across this! But just now it is one of the few white dresses shown on BCBG's website right now... speculate at will) I don’t think there will be any more white dresses purchases in my future – this is the one!
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