A real-deal dress

I’m not so much a fan of “wedding dresses.” I find the vast majority of wedding dresses to be utterly ridiculous, unflattering, stupid and idiotically expensive. Some gowns resemble doilies, some drown the bride in mounds of billowing fabric, and others weigh her down with heavy fabrics and innumerable beads, buttons, rhinestones and bobbles. Generally, they make me think one of following:

1. This is what a five-year-old’s pretty princess fantasy is and because it is your wedding day it is suddenly encouraged to manifest this juvenile fantasy at an incredible cost.
2. How is it that while other fashions have changed, the “wedding” gown still usually resembles the dresses from centuries past?
3. You look like a cupcake.

As you might imagine I’ve not been terribly excited to look for dresses. My inner-pretty-princess gives me a shot of glee for time to time, but usually I’ve just felt overwhelmed by the thousands and thousands of hideous, immorally expensive options before me. I went to a bridal boutique downtown and had a panic put into me when I found out that it takes at least four months to get your dress and it is better to order six months or more in advance. (*The wedding is in less than six months at this point.)

I tried going to stores like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Ave and designer boutiques to see if I could find something good for a wedding that wasn’t necessarily an official wedding dress, but I didn’t find anything that I liked. I then started to put out feelers for people who might be able to make me a dress and thought that would probably be the route I would take.

Meanwhile, my aunt was very excited to take me dress shopping. I was actually up for it, but mostly because I wanted to get a sense of what shapes I liked and how different fabrics fell so I could get onto having a dress made. We decided to take two hours Saturday afternoon to start to explore. We ended up spending five hours at three separate stores and I tried on dozens of dresses.

For the most part I had a hard time finding things that were simple and straight-forward, but with the help of some nice “wedding consultants” and “bridal consultants” (aka “sales clerks”) we found some relatively sane dresses. In general though the gowns were just sort of blah – mostly overwhelming, mostly really uncomfortable and mostly insanely expensive. There were a couple that I liked, but nothing that was fantastic by any means.

Finally we reached the last dress at the last store at the end of the day. It was one of those things that takes a few minutes to wrap around, lash down and button up. I pulled it up and sort of held it on me but was thinking, “nah.” It had too much fabric that was too heavy, too much train, and it seemed too fussy. My aunt was lurking around the corner to see if a dress another girl had been trying on was available and unsure if I should take the dress off, change back into my regular clothes or what, I just sort of stood there in a stupor. I didn’t really care to try the dress on, but the “wedding consultant” kept lacing and buttoning and tying and what all until next thing you know I was wearing the dress so why not give it a look?

I went to the big mirror and thought incredulously, “whoa, that actually looks really good.” My aunt came around the corner and said, “wow, that looks really good.” The wedding consultant came over and said, “Wow, that looks really amazing.” None of us had said anything like this about any of the other dresses. I sat in it, walked around in it, looked at it from a bunch of angles, took pictures from a bunch of angles, and from every perspective I could think of it seemed to work. It is relatively simple, comfortable, cheap and easy to hem, makes my figure look dynamite and is a really good price. It is also pretty and fun.

I’ve shown the pictures to a variety of family members and when comparing photos of the dress with other dresses I tried on the universal reaction has been, “hmm… hmm… oh that’s nice… hmmm…” when looking at the earlier ones. Then when the photos of me in this dress come up, “OH MY GOD I LOVE IT!”, or something similar, is the typical reaction.

So despite my lack of enthusiasm it seems that I’ve found a real wedding dress. Go figure. I’d attach a picture of it, but we can’t ruin the surprise for those of you coming to the wedding now! Never mind running the risk that my Christopher might see it!

Irreconciable differences?

I don't like the typical "wedding website" programs floating around there so I decided to make one on my own using blogger (see it here: Brooke & Christopher.) The set-up, format, elements to include, etc were easy. Choosing colors that both me and my Christopher like, however, proved to be an immense challenge.

Partly because Chris has a more "traditional" sense of style. (Some might call it tasteful, I sometimes think of it as "not lively enough.") But mostly because of me. I have, what one might call, a more "eclectic" sense of style (and we should maybe put quote marks around "style" as well!) When we were playing around with colors I kept wanting to have all sorts of lively elements that, in a traditional sense, don't necessarily "match" or "compliment" each other but that make me happy.

On top of the fundamental differences Chris also prefers soft, muted colors while I lean more toward bright, obnoxious colors. It is a commons habit of mine to spot some bit of apparel (shoes, jacket, swim suit, sweater, etc) and burst out with a delightful squeal, "It's hideous!!!" because it hurts ones eyes to gaze upon it but I love it.

I begrudgingly agreed to use an online color scheme chooser that supposedly helps you avoid color combos generally perceived as inappropriate. But I still do feel that the blog could be a little brighter, a little more color, a little more lively in general.

I try to see my Christopher's point though, and some part of me does understand. But, it is like what I chose to wear this morning. I decided to try out a nice blue and gray argyle sweater but felt it needed a little zip. So I put a flaming orange t-shirt underneath it to show through the slight v-neck. Christopher claims it doesn't match (he says it is an issue of tone or hue or something) and while I see his point (sort of), I went ahead with it anyway because it just makes me happy to have the color around, even if it doesn't match or isn't flattering. Also, the gray shirt underneath would have match too much (who wants to look like a JCrew catalog?)

In the elevator up to my office though Chris' point sunk in a tiny bit more as I realized that I was wearing blue/gray argyle, flaming orange, a pastel version of lime green (my coat), and had topped it all off with intensely bright pink (a cashmere winter hat.) I'd also tried to wear purple leather gloves this morning but couldn't track them down in the flurry to get out the door. Probably the fashion gods hid them for my own good.

Despite understanding his point, I'm pretty sure that if it were up to me our wedding blog would probably be wonderfully hideous.

New house + new fiancé

Wednesday we signed the papers for our house, signed over our entire savings account (I haven't had such a small amount in my savings since I was 7) and then on Friday got the keys to our new house.

We got to OUR house a little bit after work, the realtor handed the keys to us, gave us a small bottle of champagne and said, "okay, I'll leave you alone in your house for a little while." Standing in our living room, in front our our fireplace, Chris said he had a small house-warming present for me and told me to close my eyes. Silly me thought it would be chocolate or something (I even opened my mouth!) Imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes to see this dazzling, perfect platinum & diamonds ring in front of me!

So this probably doesn't come as THAT big of a surprise to most of you (we did just buy a house after all and it is harder to get out of a mortgage than a marriage) but still I was surprised. And happy. And excited. We actually went to look at rings earlier that very same week so he could get an idea of what sort of things I like, don't like, costs, process, etc. The key point for this story is that the jeweler we decided on does everything custom and it generally takes a few weeks to design, mold, cast, set, polish, etc. I thought the proposal would come spring-time-ish. Chris, however, had a different plan. That afternoon he gave the jeweler a call, laid out what he wanted and somehow it happened in just over three days.

Our realtor was even in on it. She sent us an email saying that she was so sorry but there had been a miscommunication and she wasn't going to be able to get the keys until 5:45 so would we possibly be able to meet her at 6 instead of 5:30. Turns out she and Chris had colluded. Chris had to run by the jewelers before coming home. He got there at 5pm, just as the ring was getting its final polishing, was home 5:30ish and we got to our house (ring and all, little did I know) about 6:00.

So yes, my Christopher asked me to marry him and YES is what I said.

After some kissing and jumping around we then hoped in the car to head to our tequila party, originally organized as a "yay! we bought a house" get together at a swanky new tequila bar that turned into something much bigger. My aunt cried when I showed her my hand. She may have had a small aneurysm too. Hard to tell. Needless to say that between the house, the imminent move, the ring, the lost reservation for 15, the swarms of people at the bar and a teeny bit of tequila (or more than a teeny bit) I was allllllllll a fluster Friday night. A fluster in a good way.

So, yup my Christopher will OFFICIALLY be mine and only mine at some point this summer.

Yay!!

Ohhhhh Bama!

I like him. He makes me feel excited and optimistic when politics generally fills me with some degree of nausea. I usually end up voting because "I should" and then pick the one I dislike the least. But I actively LIKE Obama. It is fun to say too "Ohhh BAMA baby!"