Dress Shopping Attempt #1

Well, I wish I could say I found the dress.

Remember all those pretty white evening gowns I posted constantly? Well, they exist on the website, but not in the stores, so I couldn't try any of them on. There were NO white gowns in the stores. We went to a bridal shop and I tried on some expensive gowns, but wasn't overly thrilled even without the knowledge of each of them being $3300 minimum. (I know, my parents say, do not think about the money, but I am thinking about $3300 and how at least $2300 of that could be spent on something more fun)

It didn't help that I was put on some medications the night before that made me ridiculously drowsy, and I think we only made it to about 5 stores (in 3 hours) before I really had to go home. I probably shouldn't have been driving. Luckily, I am over that now, but unluckily it was the day when I wanted to be awake and excited and shopping. I am doing fine now, I was on some strong anti-nausea medicines that knocked me out and some strong antibiotics that weren't helping with the nausea, but now it's OK :)

Anyway, I am going to keep looking, but I am very annoyed at the stores for advertising these beautiful white dresses on their websites and then not putting them in their stores. People have suggested ordering them and then returning them, but I really have no idea what is going to look good on me, so this sounds like an unnecessarily expensive way to go about this.

L'sigh (dramatically).

Bridesmaids Kits

For the past couple of days I have been assembling/creating a Bridesmaid Kit. I am kind of dorky so I got really excited about putting together a packet for my bridesmaids. I'm giving one to YoungerJew (my Man of Honor), even though most of it is about dresses. Ha!

Here is what is included in the kit:

- A little thank-you note for being my bridesmaid!

- An information packet about the dresses, dates for the wedding events, and a Jewish wedding crash course.

- A color palette to use as a guide when picking out dresses (or for future reference, like if they have an idea for decorating or whatever). I didn't give YoungerJew a color palette for two reasons: 1) he isn't picking out a dress, I will just give him a matching tie/boutonniere; and 2) he can't see colors, so it wouldn't mean much. :-P He said I should have slipped him a grayscale palette... ah! that would have been funny, but I am not that clever apparently. We keep joking about how I'm going to put him in a pink suit or something and tell him it's gray.

Anyway, I also kept a color palette for myself. I just went and got paint samples and cut them up and then tied the colors together - it's pocket-sized so they can take it in their purse when they go dress shopping... YES I am a super nerd!

Here is the palette:

You know I can't have a simple color theme as to have two colors... of COURSE I must be more difficult. But I think these colors are related to each other enough that it will make sense when everything is said and done. The main colors are the yellow, brown and green, with highlights of pink and blue. It's very springy :) Ideally, CankeyB would be in yellow, DesignerChick would be in green, and HillelLady would be in brown. Then I'd want to accessorize in blue and light pink, like have one accessory tie everyone together.

Making decisions, moving along, woowoo.

The dress I'm not getting

Here are pictures of the dress I saw in Israel that I am now 100% sure I don't want to get. It looks amazing on the mannequin, and even though it fits me perfectly it still doesn't look amazing in pictures. Therefore, it is Rejected, but fondly Remembered.

A close-up should show the design on the fabric better, even though the picture was taken through the store window...

Pretty.

Dress Hunt Prep

We are preparing for the Great Dress Hunt of 08. CankeyB and DesignerChick are coming with me for a shopping extravaganza. It's going to be all afternoon + dinner, I think, because CankeyB has a photoshoot in the morning (yes! I am friends with someone who does photography for magazines! I feel so cool by association).

Since I don't want to spend most of my time in bridal shops that seem overpriced and not really what I want, we're going to go to two massive malls in the DC area while I am visiting next weekend. These malls should have enough stores that sell evening wear to have white evening gowns to choose from, as well as maybe some bridal shops. There are also bridal shops right near the malls just in case.

I was looking at the websites for these bridal shops near those malls and they are pretty pricey. One website had a ranking system for how expensive dresses were, and the lowest category was "Under $2,000." Eep! I do want to go to bridal stores but I just can't see myself buying a dress for more than $2,000, one that I'm only going to wear once in my life. It just doesn't make sense. I am going to focus on the white evening gowns, I think.

Also my goal is to give CankeyB and DesignerChick their color palettes to work from so they can shop for bridesmaids dresses at the same time, if they want. If only HillelLady could come! But it's a complicated weekend and she is way, way up North now. For the palettes, I am thinking of going to a paint store and picking up some paint samples so they can have real colors that they can keep with them for future reference. This means I'll have to decide on a palette in the next couple of days so they have time to buy their dresses while spring dresses are still in style. Otherwise they will have to wait until the last minute and hope they can find something at the beginning of the season.

...Maybe I will put together some kind of bridesmaid "kit" that I will also send to HillelLady in the great white North (I'm going to have to give her another name now that she doesn't work for Hillel). Color samples, dress suggestions, lists of important information (like dates, events I hope they can come to, etc), information on Jewish weddings, and other things. HillelLady is probably the only one of them to have been to a Jewish wedding before, and I've only been to three small ones so I also don't have much experience with it. Oh that would be cute. Maybe I will try to do that in the next couple of days, too...

Okay, well, I am making more work for myself so I'd better get moving!

The dress, no longer

I decided I don't want to get that dress from Israel. When I got home and looked at the pictures, I don't look very good in the dress - at least in pictures. And we're going to have a TON of pictures from the day, I assume, so I don't want to wear something that's going to make me look wider than I am.

Oh well!

Yay Tallit! & Dress stuff

I bought the tallit for JewishGuy! I happened to be walking around Jerusalem and stumble on this little shop for an artist who hand-weaves tallitot in Rehovot. She said she could make a custom one if I wanted, but I saw one in the shop that I think is perfect. I had my friend try it on so I could see what it looked like on someone, and I think it's good. He won't get to see it for a while, though! I'm not going to describe it here but it's nice, not crazy colorful, understated but I think he will like it. And if he doesn't like it, the lady said as long as it's clean and new we can bring it back next time we're in Israel (honeymoon?? :P). So that is nice to know.

In other news, I am glad I didn't spontaneously buy the dress. I showed my friend pictures of it on my camera last night and she seemed unenthused. Granted, she didn't know what I was looking for, but it doesn't matter, if she didn't think it looked good then maybe I was just caught up in the moment. Really, it's good I didn't buy it, because it was at the upper limit of what I wanted to spend on a dress! Plus I would have to carefully transport it back.

ahhh!!!dress!!!

I may have found The Dress!!!!! Yes, in Israel. I passed it on the street, fell in love, it happens to be EXACTLY my size in every area so no alterations needed - I'm not even exaggerating!!!!!!!! The guy in the store let me take tons of pictures, he said I could email him from home and he would ship it to me if I wanted so I didn't have to make any decision without consultation...

It is knee-length, has a very modrn pattern of squares that are slightly transparent to another swirly pattern underneath, it has a v-neck with beading (not a halter top, no crazy boobage) and the skirt is a-line with a tied-on belt.

He said (this could just be the sales talk) that this was the only one of this dress he had right now and if it didn't fit perfectly then I would have to be in Israel for a lot of time so they could alter it because it is difficult to alter.

Anyway, I'm not going to ppst pictures because JewishGuy reads this but I was very excited. I'm going to shop around of course but.... YAY.