Wedding

I'm getting married this summer.  My idea is something along the lines of William and Kate's but with a few less television cameras.  Why?  Because I love pretty and fancy.  SO MUCH.  Martha's Stuart's Wedding Book is something I've almost memorized.  I find it funny that no matter how small a library, there is always a copy of this staple.  Huh.

In reality I am marring a very quite and simple man.  That's one of many reason I love him.  I still love nice, fancy and expensive, but it's great having someone saying "or we buy a house..." to anything crazy for the wedding plans.  We are going to have a nice, simple affair with about 50 people.   I will share more of my fun planning as the date get closer. 

I have always wanted a wedding dress.  I only went to one prom, so my formal wear history is limited.  I love how pretty and flowy and stupid wedding dress are.  I wanted a real wedding dress.  I had been looking into a pre-owned wedding dress, and I found most people still want about 100 bucks for a dress.  I took this and decided to set that as my budget, whether I got a new or used dress, taking into account a $50 alteration budget.

In a fun twist of fate, I received a Spam e-mail in my junk e-mail account.   What?  It's 2011 and you don't have a Hotmail account that you use for the sole purpose of filling out form to keep your real e-mail free from junk?   Geeze...   Anyway, I must have filled out a form related to wedding stuff.  Thus began the flood of wedding related wonderfulness.  Sigh...  But then one caught my eye.  "70% of all wedding dresses"  In a moment of weakness I opened it, thinking that it was one of those things I should just delete. 

Nope!  A high-end chain of wedding dress salons, Priscilla's of Boston was going out of business.  I was unable to make it to the Black Friday sale, as I have a job, but a week later I went to check stuff out.  Entering the fancy (almost empty) salon was very fun.  My friend Piper and I were the only ones in the store, so we just grabbed all the dresses remotely close to my size.  How fun!

A sample sale, there were some beat up dresses.  All dresses originally 1999 and under were 99 bucks.  I tried them all on.  ALL.  I found one I loved.  It was wedding wonderful and beautiful.  And white.  And dirty.  And worn.  So it would take quite a bit of cleaning and mending and tailoring.  And my 100 budget could grow to 250 easy.  Hmm.  So it kept trying them on.  I found a close second.  It was short, not worn, and could fit without any alterations.  I have been instructed to get it altered, but we checked the construction, and it's going to be an easy fix, more along the $40 range.  So I bought it.  And the bra.

Total cost so far: 
Original cost:  Dress - $1975 Bra - $123
Markdown cost:  Dress - 99.  Bra -9.99

Total with tax: $117.
 
Huzzah!