A detail that I left out when writing about my experiences shopping for the bridesmaids’ dresses is one that, well, totally and most definitely deserves its own spotlight. After visiting Bella Bridesmaid, we decided to swing by Bridals by Lori to a: look at their selection of dresses and b: check to see if my dress was in. I didn’t have very high hopes with respect to my dress being in, and actually debated even going to Bridals by Lori.
We walked in, I did my “I’m just here to look at bridesmaids’ dresses, plus I was wondering if I could go upstairs to visit my dress” spiel, but also asked if I could find out the status of my dress. The front desk lady started plunking away on her computer.
“Let me cheeeck to seee if… wait, what’s your name?”
“Lauren Riddle, R-I-D-D-L-E. I don’t suspect that it’s in, since I haven’t gotten a phone ca-”
“It’s here. Downstairs, hasn’t been unboxed yet! It actually came in yesterday, but we were closed yest-”
“YOU’RE KIDDING ME. HOLY SHIT.” Classy, really classy.
“You can go up to the second floor whenever you’re ready. Give them about 10 minutes to unpack it. In the meantime, you can look at the bridesmaids’ dresses down here.”
I then proceeded to jump around, flip out, do all of those other awesome and really awkward things. Looking at bridesmaids’ dresses at that point was rather moot. They also had the Vera gown, and it was priced lower than at Bella, so sweet deal. (Bella actually priced it as $240, whereas Bridals by Lori had it at $220. I’m hoping to even get it lower given the fact that we bought my dress there. A girl can dream, right?) After a 10-minute browsing session that seemed like 3 hours, we went upstairs.
Upon bursting out of the elevator, I blurbelled, “MY DRESS IS HERE. Ack, sorry, volume. My dress is here! I was wondering if I could try it on.”
“Your name is?”
“Lauren. They just brought it up.”
“OH! We didn’t recognize you. You look so different!”
I then proceeded to explain that I’d lost a bunch of weight, yadda yadda, they thought I looked awesome, blee blorb. I was just concerned with seeing my dress and putting it on my body. We finally made it to the fitting area, and then I GOT TO PUT THE FUCKER ON.
Let me just wax poetic for a mo-mo. The dress is a complete dream. Having it on was really glittery-ponyful-unicorn magic, as stupid as that sounds. It felt like a dream, it looked like a dream, it was just glowy and magical.
However, the dress didn’t fit like a dream. The proportions were great, long enough, waist (will) hit in the right spot, all that jazz. The only thing is that it’s WAY too big for me. I’ve lost 7 inches in my waist alone. Good problem to have. I had to sort of hold it up with my arms at some points, but it’s fairly structured on the inside, so it mainly just dropped down to my hips. I just floated around inside of it, which was cool.
I came out of the fitting room, and I thought all three [read: Mom, June, and I] of us were going to cry like sissies. We all kept it together, and then just generally freaked out over the dress. Mom then took some photos of me in the dress, and, God bless her, she took some of the most unflattering pictures that I’ve ever seen. Granted, my camera is a pretty intimidating beast, but how she managed to get the worst angles possible is beyond me…
But I digress. I know the entire reason most of you are reading this post is for the pictures, so I’ll move it along. (Though I’m sure a fair few are just skimming down to the picture parts, so I could really be saying anything I want. Poop. Monkey-butt). Alright, alright, I’m going.
Onto the captions!
- Not paying attention, and am in total awe of the dress. Also, I look ridiculously tall. I guess that’s because I am ridiculously tall.
- Slightly irritated “You’re taking pictures now? I wasn’t ready!” pose, with my head cut off.
- I stole the camera back.
- Unadulterated joy, and probably the most ridiculous 6-year old behavior ever. Not posed or staged at all. I’m just that spastic.
- The one in which she takes a picture of the back of the dress, and my arms look ridiculously strange.
- Zoom in of my ugly-happy-bride-face. Still pretty awesome.
- Stole the camera.
- Closer shot of the back of the dress, as it was sliding off of me. Oh yeah, (extremely overpriced) veil shows up! Also, I realize that the back bow isn’t tied. I accidentally did that while floofing around.
- Amazing “You really are picking the worst moments to take pictures” face. You can also sort-of see better the dress-Lauren gap if you look at the mirror reflection.
- Included for sheer hilarity of its amazing-unattractive-angle-I-have-hair-in-my-mouth-and-am-trying-to-get-it-out-ness.
All photo commentary aside, I had a wonderful time actually putting MY dress on, and am totally and completely in love with it. I probably would have run out of the store with it had it not been for the fact that it would have fallen off mid-run.
So, there kids, that is the story of how I met my dress in person. Fittings start in March, and I am so. Freaking. Excited.
How did you feel when your dress came in? Did anyone accidentally find out that it was in, or am I alone in the serendipitous nature of my finding-out? Also, how many awkward pictures did you get out of the first meeting? Tons, I hope, so I’m not alone.
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