Dress: Accomplished...and much, much more

There’s no way to talk about this past week that won’t sound a little crazy, so I’m not going to edit; I’m just going to write ‘til you know everything you need to know.

First: Brian’s health. He’s feeling a whole lot better, and so far, test results are coming back negative (as in, no bad scary things), so we do a few more tests to rule out a few more things, at which time, we accept that this may have just been a weird virus, strange food poisoning, or some other fleeting ailment. I’m optimistic that this may be the case, but we are leaving no stone unturned. Brian was so moved by the well-wishes we received on the blog, twitter, facebook, and email. He couldn’t believe how many people took the time to wish him better. Well, knockonwood and all that good stuff, but I would say that all you wonderful well-wishers may have played a major part in his recovery…so thank you to all of you, from the bottoms of our hearts.

Next: my dress. I know many of you are salivating with eager anticipation to hear what I’ve done about my dress dilemma. Well, before I tell you, I have to send huge thank yous to the people who flocked to my aid and rose to the challenge of looking for an offbeat wedding dress. Kelly and Eric of Full Circles (http://ottawa.fullcircles.org/) both stepped up to the plate, with Eric offering to help me hunt down his mother’s wedding gown, which went to an antique dress collector last year, and Kelly, who exceeded any and all hopes I had by giving me a long list of vintage clothing dealers, marketplaces, and other insider info that could lead me to the right dress. Kelly’s dogged assurance that we would find me the right dress helped me to relax about the whole thing, and cleared my head…and that, of course, is when I found my dress!

It is not second-hand, and it was not, unfortunately, offered to me through P:P. But we knew from the start that this might happen with the dress, and it was stipulated from the start that the right dress may not be a free dress. That being said, it was darn cheap. It’s a bridesmaid dress, technically, but we’re going to stick a green crinoline under its ivory skirt, and I’m going to sew buttons into the middle of each stylized flower along the hem. It has a very vintage, Audrey Hepburn-worth silhouette, with enough of a modern twist to make it something very true to my own style. Paired with my cowboy boots, it should be quite the bohemian-rocker-tea-party dress, indeed. The moment I put it on with my boots, I could picture walking down the aisle in it, in a way I had been unable to picture with any other dress. And despite its price tag of 260.00, I didn’t fret. If this is my one big purchase over $10 for this wedding, I never hesitated or felt like it was too much. Truly, it was less than the sales tax on most of the dresses I’d seen! (For those of you drooling, you can peek at the dress in the ‘No Brian Zone’.) I could have made it green, but I went with ivory because I liked the idea of it being funkified with green accessories and buttons more than I liked the idea of the reverse; and of course, we love to thumb our nose, gently, at tradition. When you see the dress, you’ll see that, other than being white and bought at a bridal shop, it’s not the typical wedding dress at all. Oh! And, it was on sale. Thank you, universe! When I went home to talk about the dress with Bri, we remembered we have $150.00 from my uncle to spend on the wedding; we agreed this was a good place to spend it, and when I sold an old dresser this week for 50.00, we realized we’re only 60.00 away from paying for the whole dress without actually hitting our bank accounts. So we’re feeling pretty good about it!

The shop we bought from was wonderful, as well. Hopes & Dreams Bridal, in Kanata (http://www.hopesanddreamsbridal.com/), a suburb of Ottawa, had a real variety of silhouttes in their dresses, and that was really helpful; indeed, it was this shop where I had tried on dresses a week prior but had never noticed the bridesmaid gown tucked in the rack. I came back Thursday night and tried it on, and fell in love. I came back Friday afternoon and bought it. Linda, the owner of Hopes & Dreams, was great; she rolled with the non-traditional ideas we were throwing around and got excited, too. After the many, many dress shops I’ve been to these past five months, I can tell you, I really love it when the shopkeep can think outside the box with me. Linda hopes to offer something to the project, though she was unable to offer my dress, and we’ll be talking more with her soon! Linda, thanks for helping me and my girls make this tricky decision.

Two days after I put money down and placed my order, I heard back from a dress shop I’d approached before Christmas: Vivien of Holloway (http://www.vivienofholloway.com/) was ready to talk about what I was looking for. I hesitated for about 2 seconds, and then said we were too late for a wedding dress offer…but how about an engagement photo shoot dress? They said yes, and I have this beauty on its way:

This should really go in the next ‘offers’ post, but I mention it because it did give me pause for thought for a brief time, especially once I realized I could have the dress I’d been in love with for four months. But I talked with our wedding planner Amy (http://www.splendidevents.ca/index.html) from Splendid Events, and she was a lovely, calming voice over twitter, assuaging my fears and my (I’ll admit) guilt over purchasing my dress.

Oh, another treat that arrived in the past week: my garters are here! Bree at http://www.bridalgarters.ca has made me a pair of the most lovely garters ever, in our colours and complete with a little feather and sheriff badge. Amazing. Pictures soon! I knew I had the right dress picked out when I went to try it on the second time and almost brought the garter with me to try on with it. The critic that lives in my brain won, however, and I left it at home rather than look silly or overly dramatic at the bridal shop.

So I got my dress figured out, and literally minutes after signing the invoice, I realized that I have no idea what my bridesmaids should wear. It hadn’t really occurred to me that they needed to “look” like anything, but my maids pointed out that they should dress in a silhouette that compliments my dress, and a style/era/feel that suits the wedding. Combine that with tricky colour options (apple-limey green, and mango orange) and you’ve got yourself a quandary. I started panicking on Saturday night and actually ended up cutting out little vests and dresses out of paint chips, trying to make a colour combination work. There I sat on my bed in half my PJ’s (the other half forgotten in my haste), arranging and rearranging little paper ties and sashes.(Here's an example):

It looks like the royal purple, which was supposed to be only an accent colour, may save the day, because every shop in town seems to have a slew of purple dresses. I’m still considering, though, as our green is beginning to pop up in stores and I want to give it a week more before I give up on it. And an orange would be even better. We’ll have to wait and see.

I feel like some sort of…nesting?...instinct has kicked in this week. You know how they say that when a woman is pregnant and getting close to delivery, she suddenly has bursts of energy that she insistently directs towards cleaning and preparing the house and nursery for the newborn? Something like that is happening to me, but specific to the wedding. Yesterday I got out of the shower and cleaned the giant bathroom mirror. I waited for it to dry, then drew the entire floor plan for our wedding venue, complete with shrubs, steps, and aisle makers. I then proceeded to make notes and lists all over the schematic, noting where every item and details comes into play and what we are still missing. When I stepped back and returned to reality, I realized I was still nude but completely dry from standing there so long. I left the bathroom to get dressed and forgot all about it, until Brian came home, went to pee, and said, “Jordan….uh…?” I realized then that the mirror looked like secret plans for an epic war battle or some sort of hyper-complex bank heist. I couldn’t find the words to explain, and Brian just smiled gently and gave me a quiet hug. He’s such a good fiancé.

That’s it for now; I’ll have to post again this week because we have lots of new offers, and we’re also going to start doing some showcase posts, partially to revisit some of the amazing offers we’ve had but also to help us mentally organize everything. You’ll enjoy it. In the meantime, I’m frantically searching for my whiteboard markers, which I am certain Brian has hidden somewhere in here…