Simply elegant silk wedding dress for sale

It's a year on past the wedding, and I'm cleaning out my closet....

My first instinct for the wedding was that it would be a super-simple, no-fuss affair.  Accordingly, I found a lovely ivory silk dress, by Tadashi, one of my favorite designers, that seemed perfect for the beach.

That was before I got in touch with my Inner Fairy Princess Bride, and realized that I needed something with much more drama and oomph. Simple was not to be.

Now I'm selling this first dress on ebay.  Check it out, and let me know if you have any questions.  The fabric is actually much more ivory than it appears in this photo.  It's really lovely 100% silk, with a polyester lining.

I still think it would be perfect for a beach-side or mountain-top wedding...

Recap #1: Getting Ready

With the post-wedding tasks nearly finished - a final batch of thank you notes went out this week - I have enough distance from the day to try to tell the story before I forget it completely.

We stayed at home the night before the wedding. Since our wedding was local, it didn't make much sense to stay anywhere else. The day started in a typical fashion: Eric was up and bustling about before I'd even rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. He was to be the point person at the wedding site, and wanted to get there early to start directing friends and family in the set-up.

Meanwhile, I scored the better end of the deal, starting my day with a few languid Sun Salutations, and breakfast on the deck while the fog cleared, as I waited for my long-time hairstylist to do my hair and makeup. Right on schedule, she appeared around the side of the house, toting a huge rolling suitcase full of styling tools.

Here, I point out that it's helpful to have a consistent relationship with a hairstylist: she charged her usual hourly rate - not some crazy inflated wedding price - for the hair trial and day-of hair (and threw in makeup application, using goodies I'd purchased at a MAC makeover, as a wedding day gift!).

As she set to curling and pinning, my two Women of Honor showed up, along with the Flower Girl and an incredible painting - now in the place of honor on our mantel - by the mother of one of them, a noted artist. I have admired her paintings forever, and was stunned by their generosity.

With my face and hair fancied up, we headed for the wedding site with my 'backup dress.' Two other friends were to pick up the wedding dress at the salon that morning, to avoid the hassles of having to hang it in a closet in our small house. But just in case something went awry, I brought the first dress - the simple one I had purchased online - back before I got in touch with my Inner Bride.

Fortunately, the dress pick up went without a hitch, and the dress was hanging in a spare room when we reached the wedding site.

The Women of Honor, and other Ladies in Waiting, worked on the zillions of button with a crochet hook.



Eventually, I was buttoned into my dress, photographed,


and hurried downstairs to meet Eric, to begin the walk to the beach, with our families, the Women of Honor, and the Flower Children.



Photos 1,2,3 by Srabani, 4 by Rob, 5 by Kate Harrison.

A perfect beach day

This says it all!

And, yet, there's so much more to say.

Everything came together: the officiant, the weather, the families, the guests, the beach flags, the Quaker moment, the Ladies in Waiting and their dresses, the flowers, the flower children, the blessing, the music, the food, the wine, the cake, the sun, the sand, the hike (in the wedding dress!), the barefeet.

Yee-haw!!!

My first (and only?) dress fitting

More than two months ago, the bridal salon phoned to say that my dress had come in. They encouraged me to make an appointment for a fitting right away. I procrastinated for a while, and then admitted that the reason I didn't want to try on the dress was that I was worried it wouldn't fit!

Because I was between sizes, the bridal consultant had encouraged me to go with the smaller size, which would require fewer alterations, assuming that I lost "five to eight pounds." With long, looooong desk-bound workdays for my huge deadline, I was stressed out, snacking unhealthily, and getting no exercise.... not conducive to losing weight.

There's nothing like a deadline to bring priorities into focus, and while I postponed the fitting to finish the dissertation, I tried to get my eating habits and exercise routine back on track, with all the great comments from here.

The result: the dress fits as though it was made for me! Perfectly! And looks amazing with my Jimmy Choos! Woo-hoo!!!

Don't hate me, un-bride

You wanna know the real reason I haven't gone to SF for the first fitting of my wedding dress?

I'm worried that it will be too small.

See, I was between sizes when I ordered it. A size up would have needed significant alterations to fit, while the size ordered was just a little bit snug. The consultant encouraged me to order the smaller size and just "lose 5 to 8 pounds." Not much. I assured her (and myself) that I was at my winter weight, and a few weeks of salads and daily workouts would have me fighting trim.

Ah, but we didn't figure in the stress munchies that join at my computer each day. And we didn't count on me spending 8-10 solid hours in front of the computer, all day, every day.

I'm maybe two pounds lighter than when I ordered the dress in January. My fitting is in three weeks. Goodbye alcohol, laziness, and bread.

I welcome any other (sane, healthy, and vegetarian) ideas to help me fit into my dress.

(I can't believe I am capitulating to Shrinking Bride Syndrome. $)@$#^*&#@ ego. and Wedding Industrial Complex.)

Snooty Snoot Salon, Redux

or, Yes, the Economy is Really That Bad

Back in January, when I had been engaged mere weeks, I went on a wedding dress shopping expedition in San Francisco with three friends, two of whom are also getting married this year. A Saks sample sale was the catalyst for our foray, but we checked out a whole range of places, from Jessica McClintock, where dresses started at $99, on up.

Walking down the street, we passed the lovely windows of a fancy national bridal salon, which we'll call Snooty Snoot Salon, and spontaneously rang to see if we could come up. At that point, I was an absolute wedding neophyte. I still thought $1000 was a lot of money for a dress, and I didn't know that bridal salons are are not enamored of spontaneity. Had they told us to come back when we had an appointment, that would have been fine.

Instead, they grudgingly invited us up, and seemed a bit taken a back when four grad students tromped into the store, looking like, well, grad students. Our appearance did not suggest that we had tons of money to spend - because we did not. The consultant seemed to further regret her decision when I revealed that the top of my price range barely overlapped with the bottom of the price range of dresses in the store. Having never investigated wedding dresses before that day I had no idea how expensive they can be.

My wedding date was the third strike: "You're getting married in October?!??! This October??!!! You're really a bit late to be looking for a dress. Thank goodness you came in TODAY!" [Lady, I couldn't have come in any earlier, because I wasn't planning to get married, before now!]

So we didn't exactly hit it off. I tried on a few of their inexpensive dresses, and with every dress change, the consultant cooed about how 'slimming' the dress was. Since I didn't feel the particular need to be 'slimmed', 'slimming' began to feel like code for "you big fat cow." [For the record, I'm a climber, a yogi, a bike-commuter, and a hiker. I'm no toothpick, but I'm of quite average size. I hate the cultural construct that tells women to virtually disappear by losing so much weight before their weddings, suggesting that we will disappear altogether once we are married.]

Every opinion or idea I ventured about my wedding or my potential wedding dress was quite incorrect, according to the consultant. I think it's fair to say that I was not her favorite customer ever.

I was quite surprised, then, to receive a phone call yesterday from the same consultant, informing me that if I hadn't bought my dress [which one would think I must have by now, since Jan. was already too late for an Oct. wedding], I might be interested to know that Snooty Snoot Salon is having a 15% off sale, and I was welcome to come in.

It's rather alarming to hear that the economy is so bad that they are courting customers they had no use for four months ago.

Fortunately, I've already found a perfectly lovely dress, for an eminently reasonable price, at another shop in downtown SF, staffed by kind, charming consultants.

Which dress for Dr. Cowgirl?

My dear friend and fashion consultant Dr. Cowgirl is getting married in August. Since my wedding is in October, we have had great fun shopping for dresses together. It's been an absolute blast trying on white dresses all over the Bay Area. But now my favorite fashion consultant is stuck. She's having a really tough time deciding between these two dresses.

And that's where you come in, Dear Cyberspace Reader (if indeed you are out there...). Give a girl a little help - the benefit of your stylish and informed opinion, 'cause I know you've looked at as many dresses as we have. Dr. Cowgirl is 5'3", beautifully slender yet curvy (what a dreamy combo!), and brunette. Her wedding will be outdoors, on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains. She's wearing her cowgirl boots under the dress. (See, she's soooo cool!) Other factors: she'd really like to spend less than $500 on a one-time wear dress.

Which dress do you like for her?

Option 1: Mori Lee, with beading and embroidery, $730 on sale
I have never seen this dress on her because it's not available nearby, but her sister and mother saw it on her down south and loved it.



















Option 2: Lynn Lugo, silk satin, dreamy luscious fabric, $1100 new
I saw this one modeled today, and it looked smashing on her!


Do give a holla! We'd love to hear the wisdom of the crowd! Kisses!

A weekend of wedding planning

source

Calla lilies are bursting out all over our backyard right now. I think they'd make an awesome bouquet - apparently very trendy right now. Just one of the many ideas floating around my mind...

Since Friday, my brain has been occupied by all things wedding, all the time. Friday night, after a day of dress shopping, I dreamed of wedding dresses all night. I kid you not! A slideshow of poufy white dresses danced in front of my head all night, making it very hard to sleep. It was like those drawings that accompany "The Night Before Christmas" in which kids are dreaming of sugar plums... visions of wedding dresses danced through my head.

I guess it was some sort of strange catharsis after buying my dress. My poor tired brain had to release all the images that it had been analyzing and storing for so many weeks. It turns out that what they say about finding YOUR dress and knowing that it is YOUR dress is true. I'd been stalking this dress on line for a while. Independently, my fabulously stylish Spanish sister-in-law pointed out the dress to me online. Though there are only a few bridal salons that carry Pronovias dresses in the San Francisco area, one of them had a trunk show last week. I walked in with the style name, tried on the dress and saw that it was indeed the one. It was even within range of my budget (which I feared would not accommodate the style of dress I was seeking.)

I am thrilled with this dress: it's sophisticated, dramatic, and yet light and flowy enough to look great outdoors, at the beach where the ceremony will be.

However, I do have a bit of angst about the extravagant use of resources and (most likely) poor labor conditions that go into creating a dress like this. I was hoping to find a second-hand or sample dress to minimize the amount of additional labor and resources going into our wedding. We're trying to be as environmentally and socially conscious as possible, since both of us work on such issues professionally. To my mind, the one use wedding dress is one of the most extravagant use of resources at the wedding. Most of the other things are consumed (food, alcohol) or can be re-used (chairs, sound equipment, etc.) Decorations and invitations can be made of recycled materials. But the dress.... all new materials, worn once! I'm planning to donate it to Brides Against Breast Cancer afterward, so they can use it in their fund-raising efforts. At least it can have second life that way. And I will post some of my other green wedding ideas in an effort to decrease consumption and increase sustainability....

The dress is dramatic enough that it doesn't need a veil or even much jewelry - which is perfect, since I don't own much jewelry. I'm thinking a white flower/ feather would look suitable sophisticated.

Something like this













Or this















Or this

So many fun things to shop for...

And, so many things to check off the list:

• Dress ordered - CHECK
• Shoes - CHECK
• Save the Date list - CHECK
• Mailing addresses - CHECK
• Location - CHECK
• Caterer - CHECK
• Decision about attendants - CHECK
• Reserved hair stylist - CHECK

Making progress on:

• Photographer
• Music

Now maybe I can focus on writing my dissertation...

Outed!

Mr. Barefoot just set up a wedding website for us. Awesome!

He did it on Blogger, which connected it to my blogging profile, so I had to confess that I have this secret wedding blog. Not really a problem, but I may have to be more circumspect in my bitchy bridezilla moments, now that I know that people I know may be reading.

And here thought all this fast and furious typing was on my dissertation. Now that I've been outed, he knows that not all of my writing is academic.

****

And in other news, yesterday was the most spectacular shopping day of my life! With BFF by my side, I found my dream dress at a trunk show for 15% off AND a glamorous pair of Jimmy Choos at HALF OFF! Apparently Sandra Bullock wore the same style on the red carpet. I love love love these shoes. SO much that I want to wear them before the wedding. But I don't want to risk ruining them...

Happy Valentine's Day! Enjoy your sweeties!

Mystery solved

Late last night, I finally got up the gumption to open the Mystery Box, and...

{.....drum roll, please........}

discovered that the dress that looked so cute and casual and carefree online (and was just over $100 on eBay) is not the one for me.

It seems that, much to my chagrin, I am leaning toward more expensive and poufy concoctions. Surprising, when I thought I was just a simple, barefoot girl.

But not so surprising: my best friend went through the exact same thing. Bought a simple, straight, white bridesmaid's dress to wear at her wedding, and thought she was done. Proclaimed she wanted to keep things simple and poufy was not her style. Two months later, she got in touch with her Inner Bride, and headed down to some Giant Bridal Warehouse to get a properly poufy bridey dress.

Having been through this before, she has agreed to accompany me to the Pronovias trunk show at Novella Bridal in SF this Friday. I feel it... my dress is out there!

The mystery box

This box *might* contain my wedding dress. Despairing of ever finding an affordable wedding dress, I searched for my favorite party dress designer - Tadashi - on eBay, and found a white dress more of less in my size.

The box has been sitting there for a week!

Mr. Barefoot thinks it's just more random stuff from eBay - or maybe more books for my dissertation.

Insomnia and me

I stay up late, reading wedding blogs and searching for that perfect silk dress that is sophisticated and chic, yet not too plain, yet not too frou-frou, but fancier than anything I've ever worn, and comfortable enough to wear all day and dance all night and walk in the sand and wear with heels and still costs less than $1000.

Am I *mad*???

Bespoke?

The more I talk to people - that is, already married people who have been through a wedding - the more I think that getting a dress custom-made is the way to go.

For one thing, I'm a fabric whore, and although there are some pretty styles below $1000, the fabric is just *awful* - stiff, scratchy, not what I want to spend a whole day wearing.

Secondly, I'm getting a pretty good idea of what I want, but haven't seen it in decent fabric for less that $2k.

Third, as noted below, I love designing clothes and working with tailors, so it might actually be fun.

I found some tips on getting a dress made on the Offbeat Bride, as well as links to local seamstresses here and here.

If anyone out there has experience, pro or con, with getting a dress made, I'd love to hear it.

Wisdom from the east

A phone consultation with my stylish and sophisticated Spanish SIL opened my eyes to the elegance of European design. She directed me to this amazing site. It seems likely that the designs are far beyond my budget, but it's nice to dream....

One of the dresses appears to be in light linen, which got me thinking outside of the silk/satin/taffeta box. Linen could be really pretty, and a bit more wearable, at my beach wedding. I went wandering around the internet to see what's out there in linen. The Cotton Bride has lots of light weight organic dresses, that are a bit more casual and unstructured than I would like. So far, everything in linen seems to be for a tropical beach wedding which ours definitely won't be (though Oct. is the warmest month on the California coast.) Any ideas about where to find a structured linen dress?

More blue...

Another blue dress option, via Stupid Wedding Crap.


I've suggested it to my friend, Dr. Cowgirl, since she's getting married in Idaho. Might be just the thing at a ranch along a river. Anyone ever worn denim at a wedding?

**Update**

Apparently a friend of a friend wore this at a wedding, and it was awesome. So shut me up. I won't knock denim 'til I've tried it.

Something blue

I've been a bit obsessed with the idea of wearing a blue wedding gown. I love blue of any shade, it looks better with my complexion than white, it seems to go better with our outdoor beach-side ceremony site, and there's always the possibility of wearing it again.

I just stumbled on an amazing blue silk gown here. It's even made with Ahimsa silk, which means that caterpillar doesn't have to die for the silk. How cool is that?

This Maggie Sottero dress comes in "blue haze", barely off white and really beautiful too.

This one might be better, as Mr. Barefoot is pretty traditional in certain ways, and might not be psyched if I showed up in a bright blue dress. Though I do love the idea that no living beings were harmed in the making of the dress.

Anyone else out there wearing a colored wedding dress? Other good sources for blue wedding dresses?

Go retro?

These beautiful dresses from LeLuxe Clothing give me hope that I can escape the frothy, poufing confections.

I love the Cream Honey Vamp

And I could see the Mocha Black Diamond Cocktail Gown or the


Dusty Rose Egyptian Dress for a rehearsal dinner.



(What reasonable prices!!)

via Elizabeth Anne Designs

eBay to the rescue!

I am a little obsessed with dresses right now. I don't know why - it's not urgent. I've got a good ten months before the wedding in which to find something to wear. But the fact of not knowing what I'm going to wear right now stresses me out.

I am still dreaming of the lovely Vera Wang dress I tried on at the Saks sample sale on Weds. Maybe I should go for it... but I'm really not comfortable throwing down $2K for a dress to wear once.

Meanwhile, I searched on eBay for my favorite party dress designer, Tadashi. Their dresses are always so comfortable and flattering. My go-to party dress is a fushia silk, with a gathered - 'ruched' in design industry speak - bodice.

Lo and behold, I found a beautiful white dress, that could be altered down to my size. I suspect I'll get it, as there were no other bidders within 30 minutes of the auction close.