Eeek today is my first dress fitting - why am I nervous?
I know that it doesn't need too much adjustment. The hem needs taking up and it is too big at the top. As the shop assistant said when I collected the dress "we needed to get you the bigger size to get it over your hips".
Oh thanks for that! I'm pretty confident that as a woman my hips are always going to be the biggest bit of me!
Anyway I'll let you know how I get on.
*Update
Of course it went absolutely fine. She was lovely. Said nice things about my dress and was full of very wise advice.
Oh and so reasonable in terms of cost, less than half what I had in the budget.
Showing posts with label wedding dress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wedding dress. Show all posts
Monday, 14 June 2010
Thursday, 7 January 2010
O still don't read - Exciting News Part 2
I thought this was the dress (ignore the fact that it is shiny satin I hadn’t figured out that I didn’t like that yet. I luuurrrrve the pleats). I asked my Mum and #2 to come up and give me their final opinion and I was going to place the order. I wanted to get the dress ordered before Christmas as I was told repeatedly that it takes 6 months for the dress to come in.
Then the snow came and #2 got stuck in London, luckily or perhaps not so luckily as I’ll explain my Mum made it. I’d two appointments booked for the Saturday because I was going to make #2 try on bridesmaids dresses, the appointments fell so that the first appointment of the day was a shop I’d not visited yet. As it was their first appointment of the day I felt bad about cancelling and so my Mum and I went along anyway. Liz who I believe owns the shop was so nice, I explained that I thought I’d found my dress but I would like to see what she had in her store. I pulled out about 4 dresses to try on and Liz showed me another few options, things weren’t looking good and I was even more determined that the other dress was the one. Then Liz said she had one final dress for me to look at. Guess what it was the one!
Why is it better than the other one? It is silk and therefore incredibly light, it is not shiny or bling or lace etc. and therefore will not scare O. It is understated and makes me feel like me (bingo).Ok so it doesn’t have as much ruching as I maybe would have liked but it is darn close to what I want. I don’t like the pictures of the dress online at all so if you’d like to see some hideous pictures of me they are here and here (head chopped off to preserve my anonymity).
All sorted – yup?
Oh no nothing could ever be that simple. 3 hours after we had ordered the dress and as I was taking my mum to the station for her journey back home she pipes up with “I’m just not too sure about the colour” – er you what? The dress comes in either antique a pale gold/champagne colour or ivory, which was very very white. We had ummmed and ahhhed in the shop for a really long time, I was worried that the antique would be too dark and yellowy and that the ivory would be too white against my blue skin. In the end we had settled on antique and I didn’t really need the only other person to see me in the dress raising doubts. After a few very tense days I decided just to stick with my initial decision, I hope it is the right choice – I just have to keep remembering how I felt in the shop.
Sorry to end on a downer, I am very pleased with the dress and I'm overly excited that I don't have to go dress shopping anymore!!
Next bit of exciting news next week - turns out I do like a little tiny bit of bling......
Then the snow came and #2 got stuck in London, luckily or perhaps not so luckily as I’ll explain my Mum made it. I’d two appointments booked for the Saturday because I was going to make #2 try on bridesmaids dresses, the appointments fell so that the first appointment of the day was a shop I’d not visited yet. As it was their first appointment of the day I felt bad about cancelling and so my Mum and I went along anyway. Liz who I believe owns the shop was so nice, I explained that I thought I’d found my dress but I would like to see what she had in her store. I pulled out about 4 dresses to try on and Liz showed me another few options, things weren’t looking good and I was even more determined that the other dress was the one. Then Liz said she had one final dress for me to look at. Guess what it was the one!
Why is it better than the other one? It is silk and therefore incredibly light, it is not shiny or bling or lace etc. and therefore will not scare O. It is understated and makes me feel like me (bingo).Ok so it doesn’t have as much ruching as I maybe would have liked but it is darn close to what I want. I don’t like the pictures of the dress online at all so if you’d like to see some hideous pictures of me they are here and here (head chopped off to preserve my anonymity).
All sorted – yup?
Oh no nothing could ever be that simple. 3 hours after we had ordered the dress and as I was taking my mum to the station for her journey back home she pipes up with “I’m just not too sure about the colour” – er you what? The dress comes in either antique a pale gold/champagne colour or ivory, which was very very white. We had ummmed and ahhhed in the shop for a really long time, I was worried that the antique would be too dark and yellowy and that the ivory would be too white against my blue skin. In the end we had settled on antique and I didn’t really need the only other person to see me in the dress raising doubts. After a few very tense days I decided just to stick with my initial decision, I hope it is the right choice – I just have to keep remembering how I felt in the shop.
Sorry to end on a downer, I am very pleased with the dress and I'm overly excited that I don't have to go dress shopping anymore!!
Next bit of exciting news next week - turns out I do like a little tiny bit of bling......
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
O don't read - Exciting News Part 1
So the first piece of exciting news, I was tempted to make you wait until next week but that would be cruel. If you have been reading the comments on both Rebecca’s blog and mine you might have guessed that I have ordered my wedding dress.
First a little bit of background, do you remember the list? Well although the list had some very good logical points not all of them made it into the dress.
Lessons I have learnt:
Long dresses have to hang from somewhere (startling eh?). Dresses which hang from under the boobs make me look pregnant. Dresses which hang from the waist make my hips look enormous. Dresses which are fitted past my hips and then hang give me quite a pleasant hour glass figure (who knew).
There are very very few wedding dresses out there with straps. The dresses I found which did have straps did something strange to my boobs. Either they disappeared completely, which is shocking for a more than DD girl, or they gave me so much cleavage I blushed (I’m not a cleavage on my wedding day type girl).
Lace just doesn’t suit me. I still don’t do bling and definitely no bling on the top half of the dress. I’m ever so slightly obsessed with ruching. I like silk (I’m ducking for a telling off from Rebecca as I have no knowledge of fabrics and probably shouldn’t be wanting a silk dress).
I like Alan Hannah dresses – no complete dresses, tops off some and skirts off others. Two shops I visited contacted Alan Hannah and they would have made changes or combined the dresses that I liked but because I couldn’t picture them or try them on it made my brain hurt.
I’m getting married in the wrong year – one kind dress assistant told me. The designers are not making plain dresses this year the trend is for bling or lace. If I want to get married in 2010 I’m going to have to have one or the other. Er naff off, I’ll just go look somewhere else, I’m not putting off my wedding just to wait for the fashion to change. I think you’ll find that your taste in dresses means that all you stock are jewel encrusted fairy dresses and that is why there isn’t anything in your shop for me. Phew sorry rant over!
So the list now looks like:
Strapless, lightweight, no bling, fitted to the hips, ruching, a small skirt, small train and silk.
Then we get onto the budget. I’m not a very extravagant girl so I set my budget pretty low (unrealistically low it turned out initially). I have a car to pay off, a kitchen to save for and honestly better things to waste my money on than a dress I’m only going to wear for about 10 hours. Ha – try telling that to my heart and my brain. I have an uncanny ability to be drawn to the most expensive dresses in shops. Hence the love of Alan Hannah and the fact that I’m green with envy over Rebecca’s dress by Suzanne Neville, had I not found my dress when I did I was totally going back for this dress or this one (to hell with the budget – who wants a new kitchen when you can float about in dresses like these, and I’m sure I could have worn it on other occasions like erm doing the housework?).
Anyway is that "get to the point I hear you screaming?" Be back tomorrow with the all important details (mwahhhaaahhhaa evil laughter)……
First a little bit of background, do you remember the list? Well although the list had some very good logical points not all of them made it into the dress.
Lessons I have learnt:
Long dresses have to hang from somewhere (startling eh?). Dresses which hang from under the boobs make me look pregnant. Dresses which hang from the waist make my hips look enormous. Dresses which are fitted past my hips and then hang give me quite a pleasant hour glass figure (who knew).
There are very very few wedding dresses out there with straps. The dresses I found which did have straps did something strange to my boobs. Either they disappeared completely, which is shocking for a more than DD girl, or they gave me so much cleavage I blushed (I’m not a cleavage on my wedding day type girl).
Lace just doesn’t suit me. I still don’t do bling and definitely no bling on the top half of the dress. I’m ever so slightly obsessed with ruching. I like silk (I’m ducking for a telling off from Rebecca as I have no knowledge of fabrics and probably shouldn’t be wanting a silk dress).
I like Alan Hannah dresses – no complete dresses, tops off some and skirts off others. Two shops I visited contacted Alan Hannah and they would have made changes or combined the dresses that I liked but because I couldn’t picture them or try them on it made my brain hurt.
I’m getting married in the wrong year – one kind dress assistant told me. The designers are not making plain dresses this year the trend is for bling or lace. If I want to get married in 2010 I’m going to have to have one or the other. Er naff off, I’ll just go look somewhere else, I’m not putting off my wedding just to wait for the fashion to change. I think you’ll find that your taste in dresses means that all you stock are jewel encrusted fairy dresses and that is why there isn’t anything in your shop for me. Phew sorry rant over!
So the list now looks like:
Strapless, lightweight, no bling, fitted to the hips, ruching, a small skirt, small train and silk.
Then we get onto the budget. I’m not a very extravagant girl so I set my budget pretty low (unrealistically low it turned out initially). I have a car to pay off, a kitchen to save for and honestly better things to waste my money on than a dress I’m only going to wear for about 10 hours. Ha – try telling that to my heart and my brain. I have an uncanny ability to be drawn to the most expensive dresses in shops. Hence the love of Alan Hannah and the fact that I’m green with envy over Rebecca’s dress by Suzanne Neville, had I not found my dress when I did I was totally going back for this dress or this one (to hell with the budget – who wants a new kitchen when you can float about in dresses like these, and I’m sure I could have worn it on other occasions like erm doing the housework?).
Anyway is that "get to the point I hear you screaming?" Be back tomorrow with the all important details (mwahhhaaahhhaa evil laughter)……
Monday, 30 November 2009
O don't read - Still no dress
First of all apologies for the very short post on Friday I had guests arriving any second and wanted to get something posted before they got here. I hope you all had a good weekend.
We were pretty busy, O’s sister and her husband stayed Friday night they are expecting a baby boy at the end of January and were down to buy baby stuff. On Saturday I met my Mum and Dad in Edinburgh – they drove up that morning. O and my Dad went to see the rugby, unfortunately Scotland didn’t win and they got extremely cold.
The dress dilemmas continue – short version I still haven’t found the right one and need to continue looking.
Long version -
Firstly we went to Rachel Scott, Rachel was really lovely, we were the only ones in the shop so received very personal service. I liked two Alan Hannah dresses, the bodice of one (Bella) and the skirt of another (All that Jazz). Apparently we could get the two combined however they were both £1,800 dresses (way over budget) and I think I'd have come out with the Maggie Sottero Adele in the end anyway - although they were much lighter weight.
Then we went to Berketex and found a really lovely dress. It has straps, its light I'd be able to dance all night long in it. It's much more what I had in my head when I thought about my dress. It isn't perfect though, the sample dress was too big so I don't think it was an accurate representation. It is made with satin, and hides absolutely nothing - you can see the outline of my belly button piercing through the fabric which I don't really think is appropriate! But it does make me feel beautiful and elegant. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures and I can't find a picture of the dress online. It is by a designer called Christina Sposa called Bali.
Finally we went to Emma Roy to show my Mum the Adele. Unfortunately the shop was absolutely heaving (think my Mum might have been a little overwhelmed by this point and all the dresses were blurring into one) there were women and dresses everywhere. There was also a girl trying on the Adele which was off putting. I tried it on again and I do still really like it but it was much stiffer and heavier than the Alan Hannah dresses I tried on. They can remove some of the net underskirts to make the skirt less full. But the skirt is made of a very heavy fabric and that can't be changed.
It is killing me that I can't ask O what he thinks but he doesn't want to know anything about the dress.
So the search continues…………………………….
We were pretty busy, O’s sister and her husband stayed Friday night they are expecting a baby boy at the end of January and were down to buy baby stuff. On Saturday I met my Mum and Dad in Edinburgh – they drove up that morning. O and my Dad went to see the rugby, unfortunately Scotland didn’t win and they got extremely cold.
The dress dilemmas continue – short version I still haven’t found the right one and need to continue looking.
Long version -
Firstly we went to Rachel Scott, Rachel was really lovely, we were the only ones in the shop so received very personal service. I liked two Alan Hannah dresses, the bodice of one (Bella) and the skirt of another (All that Jazz). Apparently we could get the two combined however they were both £1,800 dresses (way over budget) and I think I'd have come out with the Maggie Sottero Adele in the end anyway - although they were much lighter weight.
Then we went to Berketex and found a really lovely dress. It has straps, its light I'd be able to dance all night long in it. It's much more what I had in my head when I thought about my dress. It isn't perfect though, the sample dress was too big so I don't think it was an accurate representation. It is made with satin, and hides absolutely nothing - you can see the outline of my belly button piercing through the fabric which I don't really think is appropriate! But it does make me feel beautiful and elegant. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures and I can't find a picture of the dress online. It is by a designer called Christina Sposa called Bali.
Finally we went to Emma Roy to show my Mum the Adele. Unfortunately the shop was absolutely heaving (think my Mum might have been a little overwhelmed by this point and all the dresses were blurring into one) there were women and dresses everywhere. There was also a girl trying on the Adele which was off putting. I tried it on again and I do still really like it but it was much stiffer and heavier than the Alan Hannah dresses I tried on. They can remove some of the net underskirts to make the skirt less full. But the skirt is made of a very heavy fabric and that can't be changed.
It is killing me that I can't ask O what he thinks but he doesn't want to know anything about the dress.
So the search continues…………………………….
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
O don't read - More on the dress
I feel like I've lost my mind!
So something bad happened this weekend - I went dress shopping with two of my friends we went to Emma Roy and Pretty Woman (I have to say the service in both shops was excellent). I tried on about 15 different types of dress in different colours, shapes and materials.
The bad thing that happened is that I think I might have found "the one". Bad because it totally contradicts everything that I previously expected about my dress. The list has gone totally out of the window and that is messing with my head. My list was based on rational, sensible, logical decisions, and yet I had an emotional reaction to this dress (yes I realise how ridiculous that sounds, it's only a dress, but I didn't want to take it off).
Remember the disclaimer – I reserve the right to totally change my mind after trying on more dresses.
This is the dress Maggie Sottero - Adele
So lets have a look at the list;
The Wedding Dress List: Comfortable, No train, Not too big, Affordable, Off the rack or a sample, Structured but not too structured, No bling
Adele - has a train (which I would have cut down a bit), has a big skirt (felt big to me), is much more than I wanted to spend (but not more than I can afford) - then they charge you for alterations on top of that, not off the rack - will take 6 months to come in (the wedding is in July so just have enough time), has a full corset, no straps and the skirt is quite heavy, it was comfortable for the 10 mins that I stood staring at it but I'm not sure how comfortable it would be after a whole day. I think the only thing I've stuck to is the no bling (and even then it does have a tiny bit of bling).
A Tia (Benjamin Roberts) dress came a close second - see pictures of me in it here (hope the link works). I just didn't like it as much (perhaps because the sample was too big for me so I couldn't get a proper idea of how it fitted) - even though it is a much more light weight dress.
My Mum is coming to visit this weekend so she can see the dress.
So do I;
(a) Go for it (feeling extra pressure because they are offering 15% off if ordered before the end of November). Or,
(b) Go to a lot more shops and continue trying on - trying to stick to the list
I guess it is a head over heart issue - not sure which to listen to.
Apologies for the bracketed inner dialogue as always. Feel like I've got bad fairy/good fairy on my shoulders nagging in my ears - bad fairy saying go for the Maggie dress - good fairy saying explore your options and be sensible.
So something bad happened this weekend - I went dress shopping with two of my friends we went to Emma Roy and Pretty Woman (I have to say the service in both shops was excellent). I tried on about 15 different types of dress in different colours, shapes and materials.
The bad thing that happened is that I think I might have found "the one". Bad because it totally contradicts everything that I previously expected about my dress. The list has gone totally out of the window and that is messing with my head. My list was based on rational, sensible, logical decisions, and yet I had an emotional reaction to this dress (yes I realise how ridiculous that sounds, it's only a dress, but I didn't want to take it off).
Remember the disclaimer – I reserve the right to totally change my mind after trying on more dresses.
This is the dress Maggie Sottero - Adele
So lets have a look at the list;
The Wedding Dress List: Comfortable, No train, Not too big, Affordable, Off the rack or a sample, Structured but not too structured, No bling
Adele - has a train (which I would have cut down a bit), has a big skirt (felt big to me), is much more than I wanted to spend (but not more than I can afford) - then they charge you for alterations on top of that, not off the rack - will take 6 months to come in (the wedding is in July so just have enough time), has a full corset, no straps and the skirt is quite heavy, it was comfortable for the 10 mins that I stood staring at it but I'm not sure how comfortable it would be after a whole day. I think the only thing I've stuck to is the no bling (and even then it does have a tiny bit of bling).
A Tia (Benjamin Roberts) dress came a close second - see pictures of me in it here (hope the link works). I just didn't like it as much (perhaps because the sample was too big for me so I couldn't get a proper idea of how it fitted) - even though it is a much more light weight dress.
My Mum is coming to visit this weekend so she can see the dress.
So do I;
(a) Go for it (feeling extra pressure because they are offering 15% off if ordered before the end of November). Or,
(b) Go to a lot more shops and continue trying on - trying to stick to the list
I guess it is a head over heart issue - not sure which to listen to.
Apologies for the bracketed inner dialogue as always. Feel like I've got bad fairy/good fairy on my shoulders nagging in my ears - bad fairy saying go for the Maggie dress - good fairy saying explore your options and be sensible.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
O don't read! My Thoughts on the Dress
So huge respect needs to go to Buhdoop for her series of dress posts here, here, here, here and especially the beautiful dress she has chosen. Here Buhdoop freaked me out, the day before I read this post I was writing this list in my head!
Disclaimer – these are my thoughts on the dress that would be suitable for me and our wedding. I have only tried on 3 wedding dresses so I reserve the right to totally change my mind after trying on more dresses. You never know I might end up with a huge pink meringue but somehow I doubt it.
Comfortable – There is going to be some wild ceilidh dancing at our wedding and I need to be able to burl with the best of them. I was bridesmaid to one of my best friends and she was begging to be able to take her dress off by 10pm as the dress was too heavy. Luckily we managed to persuade her to keep it on until after the last dance, although it would have been funny having her finish the dancing in her pjs.
No train – I don’t want people worried about standing on the dress and I don’t want to trip over it while I’m dancing.
Not too big – I want people to be able to get up close and hug me on our wedding day, especially my new husband. I don’t want hoops and underskirts meaning they can only hug me from the waist up.
Affordable – I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes and I don’t especially want to spend a lot of money on a dress I will only wear for one day. I want a new kitchen more than I want an expensive wedding dress.
Off the rack or a sample – my friends are making me panic that I’m not going to have enough time to find a dress, I’ve been told it takes 6-9 months to get a dress made. In which case I need to find the dress now! Like right now.
Structured but not too structured – I need to keep the boobage under control but I still want to be comfortable with out too much scaffolding. (Thanks to Gee for the warning about buying a dress for the more well endowed girl). I’m kind of leaning towards straps.
No bling – I don’t seem to suit bling, and our wedding isn’t going to be very bling, we just aren’t bling people.
Disclaimer – these are my thoughts on the dress that would be suitable for me and our wedding. I have only tried on 3 wedding dresses so I reserve the right to totally change my mind after trying on more dresses. You never know I might end up with a huge pink meringue but somehow I doubt it.
The Wedding Dress List
(not in order of importance)
No train – I don’t want people worried about standing on the dress and I don’t want to trip over it while I’m dancing.
Not too big – I want people to be able to get up close and hug me on our wedding day, especially my new husband. I don’t want hoops and underskirts meaning they can only hug me from the waist up.
Affordable – I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes and I don’t especially want to spend a lot of money on a dress I will only wear for one day. I want a new kitchen more than I want an expensive wedding dress.
Off the rack or a sample – my friends are making me panic that I’m not going to have enough time to find a dress, I’ve been told it takes 6-9 months to get a dress made. In which case I need to find the dress now! Like right now.
Structured but not too structured – I need to keep the boobage under control but I still want to be comfortable with out too much scaffolding. (Thanks to Gee for the warning about buying a dress for the more well endowed girl). I’m kind of leaning towards straps.
No bling – I don’t seem to suit bling, and our wedding isn’t going to be very bling, we just aren’t bling people.
Monday, 2 November 2009
Last Week
So O and I spent last week in London at #1’s house looking after my niece (E) and nephew (B). We had a great time – I just hope the kids did too. What we got up to:
Chessington World of Adventures: This was O’s first visit to a theme-park and his first ever trip on a roller coaster (seriously). He loved it, although he was slightly bemused by the ratio of queuing for 40 mins to a ride that lasted for 30 seconds (hmm welcome to the joy of theme-parks). We were lucky that the weather was bright, clear and warm (having got used to Scotland’s autumn temperatures the warmth was quite a shock to the system). The warmth was especially appreciated after we got soaked on the water flume – had to be done though!
We went to the cinema, trying to please an 11 year old girl and a 12 year old boy turned out to be too much of a diplomatic struggle for me to deal with (I can negotiate a senior management meetings but these two are scary). So we saw two films practically back to back Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Up. Both films were really good although different to say the least. Spending the day in the dark eating sweets isn’t the best way to spend time with kids so we didn’t feel like very good baby sitters after this!
Science Museum: It was half term holidays for the schools so the place was packed out! O and I could have spent all day here wandering around the different exhibits, however the kids got bored after a few hours. It was interesting to see the differences in kids today and when we were young (how old does that make us sound). They were fascinated by all the interactive screens and things to play with whereas we found the interactive screens a bit dull and preferred to read the signs and actually look at the stuff in the glass boxes!
I tried on my first wedding dress!!! Argh, went with #1 and E to look in the department store bridal sections, we had assumed that department stores have bridal sections – turns out they don’t. We found a very busy packed shop in Kingston where we tried on three dresses, the first one was ok the other two were hideous on me. (Promise to post my thoughts on dresses later).
Chessington World of Adventures: This was O’s first visit to a theme-park and his first ever trip on a roller coaster (seriously). He loved it, although he was slightly bemused by the ratio of queuing for 40 mins to a ride that lasted for 30 seconds (hmm welcome to the joy of theme-parks). We were lucky that the weather was bright, clear and warm (having got used to Scotland’s autumn temperatures the warmth was quite a shock to the system). The warmth was especially appreciated after we got soaked on the water flume – had to be done though!
We went to the cinema, trying to please an 11 year old girl and a 12 year old boy turned out to be too much of a diplomatic struggle for me to deal with (I can negotiate a senior management meetings but these two are scary). So we saw two films practically back to back Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Up. Both films were really good although different to say the least. Spending the day in the dark eating sweets isn’t the best way to spend time with kids so we didn’t feel like very good baby sitters after this!
Science Museum: It was half term holidays for the schools so the place was packed out! O and I could have spent all day here wandering around the different exhibits, however the kids got bored after a few hours. It was interesting to see the differences in kids today and when we were young (how old does that make us sound). They were fascinated by all the interactive screens and things to play with whereas we found the interactive screens a bit dull and preferred to read the signs and actually look at the stuff in the glass boxes!
I tried on my first wedding dress!!! Argh, went with #1 and E to look in the department store bridal sections, we had assumed that department stores have bridal sections – turns out they don’t. We found a very busy packed shop in Kingston where we tried on three dresses, the first one was ok the other two were hideous on me. (Promise to post my thoughts on dresses later).
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