4 hours of dresses

so hopefully my blog can act as some sort of resource for brides in the northwest. my first experience was at david's bridal, where prices are unbelievably affordable. here is the $499 "cake dress" which i likened to belle's ballgown, but now that i look at it, she's actually lucky enough to have those lovely mary-jane-esque sleeves that i like. i'm not into the poofy look dwarfing me more than i already am, but if i only had $500 to spend, this would be great.

so today i went to the bridal garden in kirkland, wa. i book an appointment on a whim and walked in with a couple 20-second sketches i had quickly made browsing their designers websites and she knew which dresses they were instantly! which was kind of cool. they had so many dresses. i picked ten that i liked. however, melissa sweet's website bridal photos don't show ANY detail (which is why i had no interest in her for bridal in the first place) and they're missing some styles that were at the shop it seems.
so we'll start with birnbaum and bullock who apparently make the dress custom to your measurements with a new pattern....or something heartwarming

"nadine" is on the right, minus the tacky silver flowers. it simply glows, and it's got a wonderful old hollywood charm to it. and it's one of those dresses that looks wonderful on me (not all do!). it's a satiny silk charmeuse, and i think i pulled out a canadianism today because i mentioned that i wished la senza made things in charmeuse and i got a blank stare from the sales girl. another version is on the left is a more chiffon type fabric with a layered bottom. both can be tea length. and it was wonderfully affordable at $2600 (some of the melissa sweets were $5000 so i can't even tell if i'm being sarcastic anymore!)


this is supposed to be the "jessica" but apparently it's the "alexandra" on the website. they have a sample for $2395, or i can order one in my size for $4790. it's got a lovely horizontally ruched organza centre framed by vertically placed - the center is better showcased in the dress on the right - love those sleeves, i dont' think i saw this dress there. i love how the sleeves hit my collarbone, but perhaps i just need to look at more sleeved dresses because the pickings at each store seem to be pretty slim

so here is judd waddell - "reese" at $3555. i thought the hollywood one glowed, but i put this one on again (and snuck a photo!) and it glowed more.

the saleslady liked this one the best for me. she said when they first got it, it looked horrible on the first people that tried it on. and then eventually some people looked ravishing in it. and then something clicked that this was the dress in those magazines with the bride leaning up against the wall:

and i remembered what had seemed like a somewhat disappointed post at weddingbee that the girl had no waist and it worried me because i recalled she had an asian frame. the downsides to this are that it's a stiff, noisy fabric, and perhaps this much ruching will quickly date itself...the upside is that it glows from far away, and frames my butt a bit (though perhaps not as much as the melissa sweet dress below - and i can't remember what the front looked like...).


we agreed that the excessive "bustling" (think cake dress) is a very now thing and would be quickly dated. i was worried this bjork-swanesque dress (which is beyond poofy on me) would be dated, but perhaps since it's not a trend it would be okay. then again it may just look like i had my wedding in the late 80's. but it's totally fun!