Finding a wedding dress is an adventure for any woman but finding a wedding dress when you are my age (not telling!) and when you are not a size two is definately a challenge. I put off even starting to look for a dress as long as I possibly could but then, I decided I really did have to wear something to this event so I better start this daunting task.
First I bought a couple of those bridal magazines and had to hire a u-haul truck to carry them home because they are so heavy! After browsing through and coming to the conclusion that I just couldn't see myself in one of those fluffy, big skirts, I headed to the Internet to start searching.
After hours of searching, I finally came upon a dress I thought was just me! Of course it was on a manufacturer's site and I couldn't find the dress anywhere. So I e-mailed the manufacturer to ask where I could find this dress. Their customer service representative, Shanno, replied promptly informing me that this dress was discontinued about six months ago and she suggested I try to have the dress made. Just my luck.....
A little leary of having a dress made when I had never actually seen the dress, I decided to go back to the drawing board and find something else. Off to the January bridal gown sales. My first excursion was to the airport area to some convention centre where there was a ballroom full of racks of gowns and a zillion giggly blonde (and yes, size 2) girls trying on their dream dresses in front of their bridal parties of ten bridesmaids. After checking out a few of the racks, and avoiding the sales people who were still trying to figure out if I was the bride, the bride's mother or just a family friend......I got the heck out of there quickly. Tried on nothing!
I went to a few other places, some stores, some sales in hotel rooms. Still hadn't tried on a thing and in most places, didn't even see anything that I thought I would actually wear in public! Finally, Paul drove me to one sale and said "Just go in and try something on." Thank god this man realizes how difficult this was for me and was patient enough to help me getting over this hurdle of trying on wedding dresses.
Anyways, I scouted out the most fun salesperson and asked for her help. This woman was strong, abrupt and read me like a book immediately. I told her I wanted simple, no train, no beading, no crazy lace, no crinolines, no poufy skirts, and yes to sleeves. She took me to a change room and handed me a dress and said, "Just try it on." As I looked at the dress and realized it had a poufy skirt, no sleeves and a train. I started to open my mouth and the sales woman interrupted me and said, "Just get in there and put the dress on. We are just finding out what size you are!" So I put the dress on and it fell off me because it was so big. (Smart saleswoman - always give a girl a dress that is too big first rather than too small!)
She brought me another dress and this one was strapless and had a train and a crinoline and wasn't anything close to what I thought I wanted - but it wasn't absolutely brutal and I knew the saleswoman wasn't giving me any choice but to try this on .... so I did. When I came out of the changeroom, the saleswoman said, "Hmm - we can cut off the train, make you some sleeves and take out the crinoline. Come on over to the mirrors and have a look." As I looked around me, I realized there were no mirrors anywhere close. When I asked where the mirrors were, the saleswoman said they were on the other side of the room. In my mind, I was thinking, "No way I am walking through this huge ballroom in this dress in front of all these beautiful 20-something girls!"; but before I could finish the thought, the saleswoman took one look at my face and said, "Don't even think about it." She grabbed my skirt and said, "Let's go!".
When we got to the mirrors, I realized I would have to stand up on a riser pedestal (beside those 20-something girls!) in front of a zillion three way mirrors running from ceiling to floor. Oh, great! But I did it and .... to my surprise, the dress actually didn't look that bad. And, the cute girl next to me smiled and asked me when I was getting married. Whew! I survived the experience. I didn't buy the dress but at least I got through trying one on! After a short analysis, I did realize that I really wanted the original dress I had found which had been discontinued.
So I started to look for a dressmaker to make the dress for me. After receiving quotations that were absolutely ridiculous and dealing with e-mails from dressmakers who wanted me to book an appointment for an hour before they would even give me a ball park estimate, I decided I just couldn't deal with this anymore.
Being a person who doesn't give up, I decided to contact the manufacturer again and basically BEG them to make one more of these dresses for me. Shanno, the customer service rep, once again replied promptly and said she would ask and to give her a week or so to find out. Finally she replied and to my surprise and delight, the manufacturing company (Bridal Originals of Canada) had agreed to make me the dress! Voila! Mission accomplished. Or so I thought!
After being measured and having a bit of a discussion about what size should be ordered (the saleswoman said "always order bigger and then, alter"????), I ordered the dress. When the dress finally came in, I went for my first fitting and, yep, you guessed it -- it was WAY TO BIG! I was trying to imagine the dress altered and fitting me properly and I just wasn't sure. Now what???
Having already paid for one dress (yes, paid in full!), I couldn't even begin to consider buying another "new" dress so I started scouting out e-bay. I came across a dress I thought I would like and it was just one size smaller than I needed. Hmmm...should I take a chance? It was available, not expensive and located in Toronto. Paul, once again, came through and said "Buy the dress!" Basically, he did not want to be around me in October if I still didn't have a dress I liked so he figured two was better than one! So I bought the dress, sight unseen by the way and sent my daughters to pick it up from the girl who was selling it. Turns out that the dress had never been worn as it came in too late for that girl's wedding so she decided to sell it. The dress is beautiful, completely different than the first dress but gorgeous....oh, yeah, and a bit too small!!!
So what will I be wearing at this wedding???? I'm certainly not telling! You will just have to wait and see but don't be surprised if I show up in a tennis skirt!
P.S. A big thank you to Shanno & Bridal Originals!
