dress

The subject hasn't come up yet within these pages, but sooner or later, it must be acknowledged.  I have a wedding dress.

This isn't a new development.  I bought the thing almost a year ago now.  I didn't go to the salons and sip champagne and try on one dress after another until I finally found "the one."  Honestly, I didn't even try anything on.  I saw a picture of the dress on the Internet, fell in love with the idea of it, and then spent the next three or four days trying to talk myself out of it.  It was too expensive.  It was too fancy.  It was too white.  Oh, and it was too expensive.

In the end, my partner-in-crime--who was probably just tired of watching me moon over pictures of an article of clothing--told me to buy the dress.  I'm glad he did.  I'm not sure what would have happened otherwise.  Maybe I would have waited until the last possible moment, panicked about my lack of a dress, and then gone to David's Bridal and bought the first thing I tried on.

Probably not.  But maybe.

I am a little sorry that I skipped over that "traditional" experience of trying on lots of fluffy dresses with my sisters and my step-mom looking on.  I worry that I'm cheating myself out of lovely memories.  Honestly, though, I love the dress I have, and I never would have found it in the shops.

And if I hadn't found this dress, I can't even guess what I would have ended up with.  I knew I didn't want a big, pouffy thing, and I was pretty sure I didn't want anything white.  Nothing in the magazines seemed even close.  I looked at vintage dresses at the Goodwill and in some of the consignment shops, but nothing really looked right.

I did look around a bit on-line for a second-hand dress.  Mostly, the prices were hard for me to swallow.  A used dress for two thousand dollars?  Really?  But hey, if you really want Vera Wang--and if you do, I don't blame you--then two grand is a steal.  If you're looking for a "gently used" designer dress, there's plenty to see.  Once Wed hosts some dress classifieds.  If you go to Recycledbride.com, you might even find dresses for your bridesmaids, too.

Fortunately for me, I did finally end up with my "dream dress."  It turned out to be white, after all, but definitely not pouffy.  And I ended up spending more than I'd planned to--although maybe not as much as you'd think.  I have big plans for that dress, though.  I fully intend to wear the heck out of it after our wedding.  I'll get my money's worth, in the end.

Of course, I'm not going to show you the dress.  That would be like posting photos of the invitations before they hit the mail, and if you've been reading, you already know how I feel about that.  I will let you in on the secret just a little bit, though.  The dress was made by Portland-based designer Elizabeth Dye, and the vintage button and lace detail on my dress looks an awful lot like the photo that Elizabeth uses for the banner of her blog...

I don't have the dress with me right now.  It's in Ohio, with my seamstress--the mother of a woman I grew up with--and it will be ready and waiting for me in June.  I'm kind of anxious to see it again.  And when we are finally reunited, my lovely little dress and I, I'll take some photos.  And then you can see...