Sample sale verdict: bitchy brides hit and miss

Made it out unhurt from the frou frou wedding dress sample sale. For kicks: we snuck a covert photo of this $6,000 Spring 2010 Marchesa cabbage leaf concoction that swallowed me alive.

Do you believe other brides told me I looked “so good” in this?

The lady assured me there were dresses under $1,500 on sale. There were, but they were either stained, or weren’t my style…or that of anyone else. So since we were there anyway, I tried on the $9,000 ones for fun.

There really wasn’t the catfight I expected, more of a subtle sense of entitlement or snobbery.

There were about 4 people trying on massively ruffled dresses per change room, so you had to get over your modesty quick, while making sure you didn’t step on any of the dresses someone else was trying on. One girl didn’t care and kept plowing people down, even though they’re struggling to get into a huge, flower and crystal engulfed Oscar De La Renta marked down to $9,000.

Then there’s the territoriality again. Each person was allowed 3 dresses at a time. This plow-o-mama girl actually stole someone else’s dress while the other girl was looking in the mirror!

After I pointed out to her that the dress was someone else’s she said “no it isn’t,” gave me a snarky look, zipped it up, and walked out, proceeding to tell her friend about how rude I had been to her. Really? Then she’d stand in front of other people looking in the mirror. Sigh. The rest of the women there seemed fine.

Out of about 10 girls squeezed into a tight room, and struggling for mirror time, only one ended up actually buying a dress, which looked fantastic on her. She seemed really surprised that I actually told her how great she looked. Guess she’s dealt with one too many bridezillas too! lol

Anyway, designer haute couture isn’t for me. Celebrities can keep their Monique Lhuilliers that have weird, unflattering shapes for the sake of fleeting fashion and regret their dress choice 2 years from now. I’m going for classic style and good fit instead. I can’t deal with all the weird ruffles and can’t bring myself to spend that much on a dress I’ll wear for one day.

Bracing myself for sample sale and territorial women

About territorial women and wedding gowns:

So a store that sells high-end designer gowns, as well as affordably priced ones is having a sample sale tomorrow. I’m going to see what I can find, and the store has assured me it’s not like the Running of The Brides at
designer label discount store Filene’s Basement. I just hope I won’t have to interact with too many crazy women.

The other day I was trying on a dress when the saleslady pointed to a woman who had bought that same dress and was wearing her own while the seamstress took measurements.

I went to the girl and told her I possibly wanted the same one, and just wanted her to turn around so I could get a better look at hers. (The sample I was wearing was smushed so I couldn’t really tell how its supposed to look).

She turned around and said “No, I am the only one who can wear this dress. It was made for me.”

She wasn’t joking. She refused to turn around.

Of course, I think the best way to show originality is to do what she did. Buy a three-season-old, best-selling dress from a popular, affordable designer. I think wearing something that thousands of other brides around the world have worn is totally unique. Why are people so territorial/ridiculous?

For the record, her dress was about six sizes too small, and she was pretty skinny. The top looked like it was spilling out of a sausage casing.

Anyway, I really hope I don’t have to deal with people like that tomorrow. lol.

Pressure disguised as helpfulness

We’re at the photographer stage now. We’ve already visited two and were really leaning toward the first one.

Now the first one just sent us an email 3 days after our meeting, to helpfully say that the clock is ticking and he had to turn away another couple for a different day, and that we should essentially hurry up and decide.

We’ve been buried in snow the last three days, so haven’t been able to interview other photographers.

Anyway, I doubt this event the photographer described even happened.

Regardless of you trying to phrase it as being helpful, this is pressure. We know lots of other people are booking, but if you think we’ll spend $7Gs on photos and videos, we’re going to do it right and shop around, and won’t be swayed by any pressure you’re putting on us.

The email totally put me off and makes me not want to book with them. Have to discuss it with fiance to see what he thinks.

Don’t believe reviews. They lie

I’ve come to the conclusion that online wedding vendor reviews must be written by unreasonable bridezillas. I’ve read awful, awful reviews about wedding dress stores and DJs and then when I’ve gone to visit, the places have been absolutely wonderful.

Bridezillas complain that the sample dresses to try on are “too dirty” or “too big.” I’m sure hundreds of people try on those dresses, and bridezillas like you destroy them. So many are ripped. Do you blame the store for not spending $200 every few weeks to clean or repair the $2,000 dress another girl will tear apart and drag on the floor five minutes later? And complaining that the saleswomen are rude? I’ve gone to stores that have horrible online reviews but in reality, the women that work there have been nothing but courteous and even squeezed me in with a last minute appointment. Sure they can’t give me a lot of attention, but I’m the one that called in at the last minute, and they’re the ones doing me the favour so I thank them.

Message to bridezillas: You are not special to wedding vendors. It’s not their job to treat you like a princess. It’s their job to sell you a dress. You are their paycheck, and if you don’t want to be, they’ll just turn to the next person lining up to get an appointment.

A lot of these women writing online reviews cite “a dream wedding needs a dream dress buying experience and I didn’t get that.” Are you for real? You’re not the only one in the store and these women are not your servants. They’re doing their best to server other customers while dealing with your unreasonable demands.

One bride is bitching that her dress came in early and she was inconvenienced having to go pick it up early. Would you rather it be late?

Another one was annoyed that her dress arrived wrinkled (obviously things get wrinkled in shipping) and she didn’t want to wait a day while the store steamed the wrinkles out. Because its logical they should drop everything and serve you right away.

And a bunch of reviews said the DJ we’ve hired is “awful” but don’t cite any reasons why. This guy answered his cell phone while on vacation in another country! And he always checks in to see if we want more services from him. I know he is just trying to upsell us, but at least he’s in constant contact and didn’t just take our money and run and leave us worried.

I think many of these reviews are either written by bridezillas or the vendors competitors trying to give them a bad name. Don’t believe everything you read!

Stop asking about the wedding…

I hate talking about the wedding. I’ve got enough stress to deal with and I think this industry is ridiculous and is sucking us financially dry. I really don’t need to be reminded about it. And your asking me about it just reminds me how far behind we are in getting this thing done.

That’s why I hate it when well-meaning people, many who are excited brides themselves, yack me up, thinking I am as prepared and as excited as they are in planning minute details of a wedding. Your wedding is three years away, yet you are much, much more prepared than I am with 6 months to go. No we don’t have invitations finalized. We don’t even know what time our ceremony will be. And we don’t have a cake yet. We’ve got more pressing things like ordering a wedding dress that takes 6 months to arrive, or a little thing like avoiding bankruptcy. Maybe you can worry about these tiny details right now, but we’ve got bigger, more practical fish to fry first.

It gets me wondering, do I give people the impression that I am a bridezilla and enjoy talking about this? Or do they assume that all brides like talking about this stuff? Is that why they are asking me all these questions?

Does it matter right now if my shoes are white, ivory or silver? How do I get people to stop asking about this stuff?

And another thing. Are these people who post on wedding websites for real? I ask practical questions on online wedding forums. You know, stuff like “when is it too late to order _________” or “how much is too much to spend on ________.” Why do people start threads like “OMG!!!! I JUST GOT ENGAGED!!!” or “OMG WHO ELSE IS GETTING MARRIED ON THE SAME DAY THAT I AM?!?!? LOLZ WHO IS MY WEDDING TWIN?”

Do you know these people on the Internet? What difference does it make if they get married on the same day that you do? And why do you want web strangers to congratulate you? Are you so selfish that the gushing of your friends is not enough? I’m pretty glad that we didn’t even change our Facebook relationship status because we didn’t want to deal with feigned happiness from grade school randoms who would invite themselves.

Maybe an explanation about people’s web posting of this stuff: maybe its’ all they have? A lot of these posters in these web forums have been married for like 5 years. Why are you still talking about wedding junk? It’s one thing to explain what you’ve learned at the end of it all for the benefit of the community, but these people are poking their nose in other stuff. Do they have nothing to enrich their lives with? Why haven’t they gotten over it and moved on to nicer things in life like spending time with family, friends, or a hobby?

Wedding price gouging

Slap “wedding” in front of anything you want to buy, and it jacks up the price 10 fold.

We went to see a photographer today. Really nice guy, who we liked and had a good portfolio. Photo packages were reasonable, but apparantly photo albums cost as much as a family of four’s monthly grocery bill.

Remember the photo albums of yore? You’d get them at Walmart. You’d peel the plastic film from the sticky backing and put a photo in between. Not anymore. You’ve got glossy metallic paper, watercolour paint paper, thick acrylic covers or genuine leather.

They’re beautiful. But cost $1,400. I’m not kidding. Not a typo either. One thousand, four hundred dollars. For a book. That’s not diamond encrusted.

The DJ we hired earlier in the week? $1,200. With a 75% deposit! In what industry do you pay that much upfront for any goods before you receive them?

And that $1,200 is not including $1,000 to flip the lights on in our venue.

Yes, we either pay $1,000, or eat and dance in darkness. Not joking about that either.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Wedding dress shop beefs

Some beefs I have with wedding dress shops:

Help getting in a dress: I’m an adult. I’ve been dressing myself for about 25 years. Why do you need me to strip down in the tiny change room in front of a stranger who “helps” me into the dress (I.e. holds it open so I could step into it…you know, exactly like I do with pants every single day). I don’t break my regular dresses. I’m not going to break yours.

Appointment: I get that you want to provide service and only have a finite number of change rooms…but why do I need an appointment to go in on a Monday at 4 p.m.?

Keeping dresses behind closed doors: I understand you have showroom space constraints but I know better than anyone what I like. If you let me go in there for 5 seconds, I’d show you so you could help me better and we’d all save tons of time.

Deja Vu: Every store in the city seems to have the same dress. Seriously. I’ll go to another one, describe what I want, and get exactly the same dresses every time. And it doesn’t fit that description. Maybe because that’s all they have in the 2010 collections.

Not listening to me: If I said I hate a lot of dark beading or tulle, or too-poofy skirts, why do you keep bringing me those? It’s just wasting everyone’s time.

Pressuring me: I don’t know about other people, but when people pressure me, it makes me NOT want to do what they are pressuring me about. I know you have to serve other people. But there’s no one here right now and it took you longer to tie up the corset back on this dress than the time you gave me to look at it. Please let me examine it for 30 seconds. You can’t pressure me into buying it at first sight unless you actually let me look. Also in the rushing category: reminding me every single time about how the clock is ticking and my dress won’t come in time. You say the dress will come in June for my July wedding. Funny, when I call the manufacturer, they say April or May. Your pressure is having the opposite effect of what you want, and your pressure will make me go to another store.

I hate wedding dress shopping

Bless the hearts of patient wedding dress store staff who try their best with someone like me. I’m pretty disappointed with the selection when dress shopping and these wonderful ladies keep bringing me more and more dresses that just don’t fit the bill.

And no, my problem isn’t that I hate trying on dresses or don’t like anything. The problem is that I hate all the 2010 designs. They’re ugly. I know this because I looked at wedding dresses about 2 years ago and saved some screenshots of perfectly tasteful ones that I still love today. Problem is they are all discontinued. Two of the four dresses I have tried on and sort of liked have ended up being discontinued models. So you can only get the floor sample, but they’re always either really damaged, or too small. I really hate 2010 styles. Seriously. Look at what is in style right now. Ridiculous ruffles, too much fairytale frilly poof like this cotton ball Nicole Richie wore at her wedding, or this asymmetrical aberration. And do you know how many moms will freak when they see black on a wedding dress? You may like this shapeless sheet that looks like the designer ran out of fabric or this one that has major static cling. Toilet paper dresses might look better. So now I’m waiting for the 2011 dresses to come in, which, from the magazine, look much, much better. Too bad the wedding dress stores are breathing down my neck, telling me that if I don’t order a hideous thing *NOW* that it won’t come in time for my wedding in 7 months.

Wedding planning sucks

Welcome to my blog! I am a bride who really hates wedding planning, but who can’t afford a wedding planner. So guess who is stuck dealing with everything?! Both me and fiance think the wedding industry sucks. No one will answer questions unless you book an appointment a month in advance and show up in person in their studio. Then you spend an hour there as they give their sales pitch only to find out they are way out of your price range. Dudes, you just waste everyone’s time by not being upfront because we’re not going to get sold.

Anyway, at the urging of a friend, I’ve started this blog. I promised fiance this would stay anonymous so we won’t make any of our wedding suppliers angry. We’re not upset with any of them at all, they’re great so far. We just hate this industry.

Anyway, we’re only having a 7 month engagement, much shorter than the now 18 month average, so we’re already way behind in wedding planning. Wish us luck as we try to catch up and deal with this industry.