(Photo from nydailynews.com, click on the pic for a fun flashback to the wedding dress photo shoot from the Sex and the City movie. So my experience wasn’t quite like that, but I had my own girls with me; oh, and it was real.)
Soon after Joe and I got engaged back in September last year, people began asking me about our plans for the wedding. And, often, specifically, if I’d gotten a dress yet. To be perfectly honest, a dress was the furthest thing from my mind. There are many aspects of the wedding about which I am very excited, and first and foremost I wanted to plan the event, the gathering, the party, the coming together of friends and family. What I wear to said gathering seemed to be irrelevant. As with proms, graduations, dinner dances etc. in the past, my outfits are often picked randomly on the day before rather than carefully planned over the course of preceding weeks, let alone months. (I tried to find pictures to prove this often unfortunate and embarrassing tactic, but alas, I couldn’t find any old pictures on this computer.)
Then winter arrived. I am loathe to go shopping and have to deal with the taking off and putting back on of shoes, tops, pants, and socks to begin with. When it’s cold outside? Fuggedaboutit! (What, I’m a NYer now. For now.) The LAST thing I want to do when it’s cold out is to remove a single layer of clothing, let alone strip down to my skivvies and try on yards and yards and yards of fabric. Plus, all I seem to do in the winter is to eat and go into hibernation mode; so I’m not exactly fond or proud of my physique in these months.
Now that I’ve moved to New York, and now that we’re down to being 6 months away from the wedding date (!!!) and encouraged by lovely warm hints of spring in the past weeks, I finally decided to commence The Hunt.
Where better than to find a dress than NYC? First, Miriam, Erica and I went to Kleinfeld’s. Where they have 1700 dresses. Where they film the show “Say Yes to the Dress,” (which I’ve never seen but my sis Bea enjoys). Where they don’t allow pics (or “sketches”) until you buy the dress. Where there are dozens of little fitting rooms and dozens more consultants dressed in their black suits. Where my poor friends were subjected to my stripping down to my undies <2 feet from them. Where our hair stood on end, partially from the static electricity generated by clawing through rows and rows of dresses encased in plastic bags, hung in a room full of racks. Where, for the first 20 minutes we looked at each other with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, mouthing: “really?!” Where we eventually did find some lovely dresses after the consultant finally seemed to hear what I was trying to describe. Where I recommend going on a weekday, not a weekend. Definitely a good place to see many gowns, rather an overwhelming yet entertaining experience. Plus, if you’re more interesting than myself, you may get on TV!
The next day we went to a lovely, lovely salon, Gabriella’s. Relatively new (open about 1.5 years) and run by Gabriella herself, Bea, Miriam and I felt completely at ease and relaxed in her bright, airy and comfortable space in the meatpacking district. I tried on a dozen different dresses, and liked most of them. There were fewer dresses here than at Kleinfeld’s, but more seemed to be plausible options. Gabriella is attentive, fun, thoughtful and knowledgeable. The dressing rooms are large and Bea and Miriam were able to relax on a couch and look through magazines and photo albums as I changed. We liked several dresses I tried on. I really wish I’d found The One at Gabriella’s! But I’m glad we went.
Finally, yesterday we went to Pronovias’ flagship store near 5th Ave. The building is impressive, modern and well appointed.
We had a good little group this morning. My cousin Cynthia and her boyfriend Harsha are visiting from Houston. We sent poor Harsha off to wander around on his own for a while, so that Cynthia could join in on the girly fun. Bea, Miriam and Erica once more took time out of their days to help me. (Thank you!!!!!!)
I tried on several dresses, and found a few good options again. Our consultant Karolina was friendly and helpful. And several of the dresses were surprisingly affordable, given the quality of the design and the fanciness of the salon! I may have to head back there with my mom for their entire floor of Mother-of-the-Bride selections! While we were there, we overheard a girl next to us who was there on her own say she’d tried on more than 100 dresses. “Well, this one isn’t the most horrific one I’ve tried on,” she told her consultant at one point. Sadly, I think her quest continued beyond yesterday.
The second dress I’d tried on at Kleinfeld (and ever!) was one Miriam, Erica and I all really loved. I wanted Bea to see it as well. So we headed back there to try it on again. Making appointments for the weekends are near impossible, I’ve heard. But even though this was a Friday, if you go back for just one dress you don’t have to make an appointment. We did end up waiting quite a while. But at least Bea to go see several familiar faces from Say Yes to the Dress episodes while we waited. And there always seems to be good people watching at Kleinfeld.
With approval from Miriam, Erica and Bea, I put down a deposit on this dress. And finally got to take some pictures! Here’s a good one:
Ah! But you don’t get to see the dress yet. A certain lovely, fully technology-enabled fiancé does keep track of my antics on this blog. So I can’t post any actual pictures of the dress. I did enjoy playing with the little blemish remover in iPhoto. Funny that my wedding dress is the big blemish in this pic :)
The best part of wedding dress shopping? Grabbing many a glass of wine and yummy snack with my girls after each excursion. Thank you girls so much!!! And yes, I’m really looking forward to wearing this dress in October. And I’m pretty excited to have that big To Do checked off. Now when people ask me if I’ve found my dress I can smile and say: “yup.”
