Shall we talk about the dress? After all, it is quite difficult to not be entirely giddy when you get to see this purple carrier bag in your very own hallway! And no, I am not showing you or telling you what it looks like. The bag will have to do as teaser enough.
The dress has been a giddy experience from the start. It’s actually a wedding present so that took a bit of the stress away, which I was grateful for after the wedding show experience when we first started planning.
Wait. I haven’t told you about the wedding show. Let’s start this entire wedding-blogging-thing properly then.
We’ve been engaged for quite a while—since December 2006. So you would think this meant we had plenty of time to organise everything! (There was no magic reason for such a long engagement but it worked rather well for us as The Boy’s brother got married last September and it was nice to have time to celebrate their wedding before we really had to get serious about our own.) But I did do the traditional newly-engaged tradition of going to a wedding fair or two. One was a tiny local affair with just one vendor from each category. Most of the people there were sweet but they only worked locally and they weren’t really our style…but it was nice to see what was out there. In most instances, our early planning involved deciding what we didn’t want rather than exactly what we wanted. We needed to narrow things down. A great deal.
It was the second larger wedding fair that broke me. A big London affair with a big enough whack taken at the door for the privilege of going in. Lots of vendors doing the hard sell and really pushing stereotypes. It wasn’t a hugely convenient time for everyone (and I quite like to shop alone when I am in thinking mode) so I went on my own and I couldn’t count how many times vendors asked to talk to someone else who obviously wasn’t there—the groom, the mother of the bride. Once would have been a fluke but repeatedly asking to speak to someone who clearly isn’t standing next to me just made me think that maybe I wasn’t supposed to be making these decisions. Just generally disheartening. And then came the kicker—I was grabbed on the arm by some sort of makeover vendor and used as an example in her speech to a crowd. And well…there is nothing like being used as an example of how not to look to make you never want to book a makeover artist for your wedding. I just started to type out what she said exactly but then I realised it ruined one of the little surprises of the wedding. So I’ll tell you that bit after the day. In short, it was a mostly rubbish day at the wedding fair and with one exception, I left feeling pretty dejected and thinking there was no one out there who catered to unique weddings. Everything was package a, package b or package c. And we kinda wanted package ‘Shim & The Boy’, which didn’t seem to be on offer.
So we essentially stopped planning for an entire six months.
When we hit a magical day where we looked at one another and said ‘We have to Plan This Wedding!’ we started again and didn’t waste time with any packages. We were upfront with vendors and said if package was the only option, we weren’t interested. We wanted to have one party that was exactly what we wanted and we weren’t prepared to dilute our ideas just because no one had done it before. And you know what? Suddenly we had great people on board who understood us.
The fabulous girls who made my dress? They understood. I’m actually a little sad not to be stopping by their shop anymore, even though I was probably a little terrified the first time I went in. But no one else has seen my dress, not even my maid of honour. It’s been our little secret and we’ve talked about handbags and vintage shops and all those little wedding conundrums that happen. And how apparently it is bad luck to make your own dress (and making three bridesmaids’ dresses has been enough to keep me busy anyway) and well…it is a lovely place.
And inside that bag is a very lovely dress indeed. To me, anyway.
xlovesx
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