I bought my wedding dress! Gosh, its a great story. Even now, as I replay yesterday's events leading up to the purchase of my dress in my head, I'm still a little star dazed. Here's the story of how I found my perfect dress:
Yesterday was Kleinfeld Bridal's "blow-out" sale. This sale is somewhat of an all day fiasco where brides stand in line to get a ticket and then return later to wait for their ticket number to be called. Once it's called, that bride goes into the store hoping to find her wedding dress. The greatest part part about this sale is that you don't have to have an appointment, which is a regular requirement, and all sale dresses are an extra 35% off. This is a GREAT deal on a Kleinfeld dress. Kleinfeld Bridal has been made famous through the show "
Say Yes To The Dress" on TLC. I've watched episodes of this show when the blow-out sale was going on and yesterday I actually got to attend it!
Yesterday morning I woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn, thoroughly dresses myself in leggings, sweats, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a fleece, a scarf, earmuffs, and uggs. I dragged (literally, I was SO tired) myself to 110 W. 20th St. where Kleinfled is located and arrived there about 8:15 a.m. A line was already forming and I guessed that I was about 20th in line or so. It was in the high 20s (brrr!) and I waited in line for two hours. One of the ladies that works for Kleinfeld came outside and walked down the line, distributing tickets to all of the freezing brides. She came out around 10:15 a.m. which is nice, because we thought we were going to have to wait until 11 a.m. Once I had my ticket, I was #17 by the way!, I went home to get warm, shower, and get cute for trying on wedding dresses!
Silly side note: I'm never home around lunch time because I normally working on Tuesdays. I went to get in the shower, turned the faucet, and NOTHING came out! Because construction is being done on the floor beneath me, the water had been turned off from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thank the good Lord that I had showered the night before and wasn't necessarily dirty. I'm just a compulsive showerer:)
So, I got dressed up at my dorm, just in case I was filmed to be on "Say Yes To The Dress." I arrived back at Kleinfeld around 3:15 p.m. Ashley, one of my friends and sorority sisters that is here in New York with my program, met me at the store. They called my number around 2:45 p.m. Ashley and I walked into the store and were given a consultant (very similar to walking into formal recruitment, ha!) My consultant's name was Debbie and I knew I had see her on SYTTD before. There were rows and rows of dresses in no particular order, but grouped by price. Ashley and I knew which designer was my favorite,
Alita Graham, because we had done research a few days before. Debbie explained that we could only have 3 dresses in the dressing room at one time. And we were off!
Ashley and I dug through dresses along with Debbie as she asked me multiple questions:
Debbie: Do you know what you're looking for?
Me: No ma'am. This is my first time to go shopping for a wedding dress.
Debbie: Do you know what style of dress you're looking for?
Me: We I like a lot of styles, I just don't know what looks good on me.
Debbie: Umm...ok, well here's one I think you'll like...
I don't think I was nearly as prepared as she would have liked, but hey--at least I had a designer that I loved. And, Alita Graham designs exclusively for Kleinfeld. AND a tons of her dresses were out on the floor, so my chances were good!
We pulled three dresses and headed back to the dressing room. I felt like a princess in such a beautiful dressing room with pedastals so that the brides could admire themselves in the huge mirrors. The first dress I tried on was my #1 choice in Alita dresses from my online note taking. However, I HATED it. I mean, it was a beautiful dress, but it did absolutely nothing for my figure. It also made my hips look huge which is a big no-no for me. The second dress I tried on, pulled by Debbie, was a one-piece dress, but it looked like two pieces. NOPE. The third dress I tried on was sort-of mermaid shaped and was definitely more figure flattering, but it had way too much beading. This was a good progression though, because it was at this point I decided I didn't want a big poofy dress, but rather a more fitted gown with a small to medium-sized train. I tried on a couple other dresses. One was taupe with sheer, ivory layers on top. NOPE. Another one was cream-colored with little rosets on the front. It was pretty, but not breath-taking the way I wanted it to be. The last dress I tried on before THE dress was very pretty. It had a more fitted bodice at the top with a sweetheart neckline. Lace covered the top with three little rosets and a ribbon tied on the left side. The skirt was multiple layers of tool. I loved the top a lot, but was just OK with the skirt. I'm not the biggest fan of tool, especially for an August wedding. And then, THE dress...
I had pulled this dress myself. It was the last one I tried on. When I put it on for the first time, I completely forgot about the previous dress. This one hugged my figure in all the right places. Its just a little big up top (which doesn't surprised me) and also needs to be hemmed. Both of these are easy fixes. I felt like a princess wearing it and wore it in the store longer than any other dress. I didn't want to take it off:) Randy, yes THE Randy from SYTTD, came over to me while I was on the pedastal in the big room and showed me how the seamstress would hem the bottom and take in the top. He told me I looked BEAUTIFUL and that I shouldn't call myself short because that is the "S word." I'm supposed to say "petite." I giggled. It was SO much fun. I'd love to write so much more about my dress, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. I guess you all will just have to wait 6 more months to see pictures!
I have to give a shout-out to Ashley Baronet. For real, this girl exceeded the Tri Delta bonds of friendship when she offered to go with me to shop for wedding dresses. Looking back, I can't even begin to imagine what this day would have been like without her. This sweet girl pulled dresses off the rack, helped me in and out of all of them, snuck pictures on my iPhone to my mother when the consultant wasn't in the room, and told me I looked absolutely gorgeous when I found THE dress. Ashley--you're a doll and I'm so glad you were the one I got to make these memories with. Seriously, you're the best:)
I met Debbie, Randi, Joan, Nicole, and Mara from "Say Yes." I got pictures with a few of them and Nicole actually kissed my cheek and told me that she loves me, ha! I wasn't nearly as star struck as I thought I'd be, but it was still pretty awesome to be having the best of the best helping me choose MY wedding dress. I had to sign a wavier saying that it was ok for the show to use any footage of me. A couple of different camera guys followed me around and asked me questions. One girl even came into the dressing room to record. No worries, I was dressed during these parts! I got to walk around the store in a silky pink robe and white slippers; it really was the royal treatment, even though there were a bazillion brides in the store with me! Over 100 people were still waiting to try on dresses after I had purchased mine and this made me so glad that I fought back the urge to stay in bed. I was a little bummed that my mom couldn't be there for the whole experience, but she was even more excited than I was about my wedding dress adventure and the many memories made through this experience.
I wasn't expecting to find a dress. I really just went for the fun of it. I still can't believe I walked out of there with the perfect dress. Or that I bought my perfect dress for 65% off the original value!! Luke was shocked when I told him and he was so cute on the phone. He said, "You bought THE dress? THE dress you'll be wearing when we get married? Wow..." It was really cute:) Hey--remember that day I woke up super early, went to Kleinfled Bridal in New York, and bought my wedding dress? Yeah, this one goes down in the books for sure.
I have my wedding dress!!!
