Dress Shopping is not as easy at it first appears.....

Here's the thing.

I have been genuinely excited about one major thing after BF popped the question and the dust settled a bit, and that was trying on wedding dresses. In those amazingly clean, expensive looking shops. Where everything in them is white. The colour favoured by Rich People. People who don’t care about spilling food down themselves because they can afford dry cleaning. And everything is a sort of rosy pink or mint green silk on the curtains or gold gilded. The shops you never go into unless you’re getting married. The shops I used to hate when I was single bah humbug.

I’m sure all ladies out there are with me here – actively going and trying on wedding dresses if you’re not engaged feels like a taboo. You just don’t do it.

Take that ridiculous jingle everyone over 60 seems to trot out at weddings: ‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride’. Which basically is saying in old fashioned lingo; ‘you will never find the love of your life if you’re always being a bridesmaid’? Gee whizzers. Harsh.  I can remember as a little girl being warned when I was bridesmaid for my cousin’s wedding by my Granny (God rest her), ‘Second time! Three times and you’ll never get married’ and genuinely feeling worried that it might come true.

I was nine.

These odd taboos get into our heads and boy, do they mess with it. By the time turn 5 in my Bridesmaiding career came around I was so resigned to being single I actually found myself wondering if there was something in it. After all I was, by the looks of it, never going to meet anyone, let alone marry them. It must be true! I am cursed! The fact that I met BF on my 6^th turn as a bridesmaid is testimony to what an absolute load of bosh the whole thing is.

Regardless, I would never, ever even THINK of trying on a wedding dress in a shop before I was engaged to anyone at any time of my life just in case.

So when I finally got around to trying on a dress I had built the whole experience up to Monstrous Proportions.

I was genuinely terrified. There was something about that massive white frock and its’ three to four number price tag that made the whole thing somehow a lot more real. So I put it off for a while until M, understandably very excited about seeing her only daughter in a wedding dress, finally cornered me and I reluctantly made some appointments with a trembling hand wondering what the hell they were doing to do to me for an hour and half long appointment.

Quick break from the story here for all those who haven’t been through the circus of picking a dress.

The way I see it, there are several kinds of wedding dress shops. You get your boutique shops where you have to make an appointment REALLY far in advance and everything costs over £1500 and the ladies are called ‘Chrystal’ and ‘Denise’ and where basically anything you put on will look stunning. Anything. Every dress in that shop is priced high for a reason. It might not be the dress for you but it’s beautifully cut and is made to make any woman look like a goddess.  Strictly no photos please. There is not a tiara in sight. They use special bands to tie up the back of the dress. The dresses are usually all made in the UK or America and are guaranteed to make you leave feeling that in fact £4000 is not a bad price for perfection really….

Then you have your mid-range shops (my favourite) usually in the smaller towns which sell lots of dresses made in Europe. There are a lot of Mermaid style dresses around at the moment in these shops. Lots. And lace. Lots of lace. The most expensive dress might set you back £1200 at most but mainly they are around £900. You usually get seen by the owner of the shop which makes you feel quite special. Always book to make an appointment. They have a selection of bridesmaid dresses and you get a good discount if you buy everything with them. Some places allow photos, others don’t. You get fastened up with elastic bands at the back and usually you want to buy from them as they are just so lovely. I am a fan of a mid-range shop. Although I didn’t see my perfect frock in any of them I had two amazing experiences at Katherine Allen Bridal in Banbury and Fantasia Bridal in Abingdon. If you live nearby GO! They are just lovely.

Finally you have your local bridal salon. I adore them. I really do. They are always run by women who know their stuff but have none of consummate showmanship that somewhere calling themselves a ‘boutique’ would have. Literally none. Once I was just given a dress and told to get into it. Just, you know, get in it. The dress stood up on its own and I didn’t even know where to start. There are none of the silk and satin changing cubicles, soft carpets or platforms to stand on which the Mid-range and Top and Mid-range shops have. Neither do you get cosseted. It’s plain business with these dresses. There are Tiaras everywhere. You get fastened at the back with a giant crocodile clip. And every dress has sequins. Every frock is a Princess Frock. Mainly the dresses are from China.

Then you have your sample sales. But more of this later.

I rang up for my first two appointments for a Mid-range shop in the morning and a Top-range shop in the afternoon with M. And I was incredibly nervous. I had a bikini wax. I wore a strapless bra. I shaved my legs. I was genuinely upset when my hair just wouldn’t dry!

M was pretty amazing. She is generally pretty amazing – she is buying my dress and said airily on the way that she had expected to pay £x so not to worry. Blimey, I thought. Blimey. Panic increased.

That morning I found out:
1)      I look really good in strapless dresses. Which is annoying as I get really peeved at the amount of people in strapless wedding dresses. It’s like every bride for the last 5 years has bought the same dress. I am starting to see why.
2)      I look pretty good in most wedding dresses. Ego overdrive yes. But I have always suited properly structured dresses (I did a lot of historical stage plays and spent a whole week in Edinburgh living in an 18^th Century frock). So actually, there were loads of dresses that would have looked lovely for BF and my wedding. That wasn’t the issue; these frocks are designed to look GOOD! It’s getting the right one for you that’s the problem….
3)      I love massive frocks and massive frocks love me. MASSIVE. MASSIVE! M restrained me in the end but there is nothing like looking at yourself in a dress that makes you feel like you’re in a Ballroom scene from a Victorian Melodrama….
4)      A belt really helps. It makes your waist look teeny. Genius.
5)      I do not suit a mermaid style dress. My bum is too big, my boobs too small.
6)      Sample sizes are weird. I fitted in one 14, not in another, another 16 was too small and then she laced me into a 10. Say what?
7)      If you’re getting married and are in a hurry, shop around for a sale dress. Wowser, you can get some good deals!

All that in one morning. Talk about a crash course in wedding dress shopping. By now my hair was dry and, feeling more confident, M and I packed into the car and trundled to a larger town. We had lunch and then went to our next appointment. Ellie Sanderson in Oxford. One of the top ranges. Eek!!

By now, despite my lovely experience of the morning I was getting nervous again. I imagined Pretty Woman and a snobby shop assistant. I even ran to loo’s to try and make my now insane hair (you lift dresses over the head – put your hair up!) actually sit in some kind of normal way. What I got was Acacia.

What a doll. Just a lovely lady. Down to earth, helpful and willing to find the perfect dress, she sat M and I in on the chaise lounge and talked us through the options. Using the knowledge I had gleaned that morning, she helped me pick out a few dresses to try and in I went with the special fastening on the back done up very quickly.

Naturally they were the most expensive ones in the shop but they were stunning.

The first one I tried on by Suzanne Neville could be cut to any shape on the top as they made it for me. It was stunning and had a price tag to match. But by god, internal corset, English cotton lace and a silhouette to die for, you were paying for a thing of beauty.

I didn’t think things could get any better and then tried on a Sassi Holford dress. Oh yummy.

By this point money and sense had gone out of the window and M and I were feeling slightly carried away. In the end we made ourselves go away, giddy with luxury, and think about it and reminded ourselves that we had plenty of time.

No, we didn’t. Every shop I went into told me bluntly that looking for dresses for a wedding 10 months away is actually not a long time. You need to order the dress in time for it to be fitted. Ordering before Christmas would be best. No pressure.

Argh. Argh.

Now came the Bleak Time. I tried on so many dresses. So very many. All lovely. But none the Right One.

I tried all ranges of shops. I had a brilliant experience in the very friendly shop in my home town at Brocades with M and MinL where, despite me having mild bronchitis, we tried on lots of wonderful MASSIVE frocks with some of the most down to earth shop assistants on the planet. But after a while I was in a big white blur. I couldn’t make M pay for the beautiful dresses I had tried on with lots of numbers in the price tag which had been the closest thing to what I wanted – I just couldn’t. And after a while….it becomes a chore. A CHORE! Finding your bloody wedding dress is just another thing to be done and ticked off the list. This was not right. Something had to be done.

I was not Bridechiller. No. Once again she was creeping closer, the panic inducing ‘I’ll just buy that MASSIVE Chinese frock because I don’t care anymore’ Bridezilla. And then the email popped through about the Sample Sale at Ellie Sanderson in Beaconsfield.

So with a bit of organising I got an appointment for 9.30am (with the philosophy that everything good would be gone later on), rallied the troops (M and Mrs McW – M because I wouldn’t buy a dress without her and Mrs McW because I wouldn’t buy a dress without her and also she had offered to see if she could make anything out of the usually small sample sizes for me to fit into) and off we headed to Beaconsfield.

Sample Sales are fun! I don’t care what anyone says. You get given a coloured tag and pop it on frocks. You share a changing room with another excited bride (there is just enough competition with ‘Oh, I like that dress’ to  ‘Get off it’s mine!’ to add piquancy to the experience while everyone is actually PICKING THEIR WEDDING DRESS together which is amazingly fun). You get whisked into the chosen frock and then wander out into this bright, hard edged territory filled with slightly harassed looking mums, very busy shop assistants rushing around dressed in funereal black and loads of youngish women in big white dresses turning this way and that in the mirror worriedly wondering if this is the one and if not, can they try on that dress over there that that other woman is in please? Now! Before she buys it!!

And occasionally you get to see the brilliantly smiling, joyful face of the girl who has found her dress at 50% off. Pricelessly wonderful to see I can tell you. I got a lot of vicarious happiness out of a few of those.

I was sharing a changing room with a very smiley young woman around my age with amazing red curly hair. In the end it got very jolly with us admiring each other’s frocks. I tried on few (all very nice but not right for one reason or another). M and Mrs MW found a veil reduced to £70 which had a beautiful lace edge and decided I was going to wear it (fair enough).

And then, I put it on. The Dress. It was about two sizes too small so this actual dress obviously wasn’t THE dress, but it was the perfect style. The price tag had one more number than was desired but having looked at me M said screw it. We put down the deposit that day and it was all up to me to get the weight off for the fitting in January. The best thing was that Acacia is going to be measuring me in the Oxford branch and I hope gets the commission from the sale. That woman had worked HARD when we’d seen her last!

Heading back in the changing room in my wedding dress the young lady sharing the cubical asked if I was going to buy it. I said yes, but not the sample as it was too small. I don’t know whether I recommended that she tried it on, whether she had already tried it on and liked it on me or whether she just liked it, but she wound up buying it. We swopped emails in the trendy pub where we’d both independently gone for a drink of champagne afterwards and I can’t wait to see how beautiful she looks in it.

I am allowed to be cheesy. It’s my wedding dress.

Ring a Ding Ding

I was out in Oxford with Mrs McW and we had been looking (you know, idly looking) at jewellers. Everything is so expensive. For example, even at a mid range high street jewellers you are looking at £1000 + for a teeny little solitaire. I am sure it’s a highly clear, carroted solitaire but it is teeny. Do they not know I have medium sized hands?

Here is a good example.

Now while I’m sure this is a stunning ring for a lot of you girls, I have always felt (and this is very personal I know) that platinum or white gold looks basically like silver, besides which I like gold, and I'm also not fond of solitaires. Which are everywhere.

There was some vague talk of using the gold from my Great Grandmother’s ring melted down and then buying the stones but honestly, neither BF or I were organised enough. I don’t think he wanted to over think the engagement to that extent either.

Also I was horrified when I did some digging to find out the ethical responsibility you take on when you buy newly mined diamonds.

The Kimberley process was set up to attempt to monitor the diamond trade in 2003 after noticing that the international diamond trade might just be fuelling human rights violations in a collection of African nations. Unfortunately, despite wide spread publicity, few retailers can guarantee their diamonds are conflict free. 

You can’t even prove that they ARE certified by the Kimberley Press according to Wikipedia:

“The Kimberley Process has ultimately failed to stem the flow of blood diamonds, leading key proponents such as Global Witness to abandon the scheme.[32] In addition, there is no guarantee that diamonds with a Kimberley Process Certification are in fact conflict free. This is due to the nature of the corrupt government officials in the leading diamond producing countries. It is common for these officials to be bribed with $50 to $100 a day in exchange for paperwork declaring that blood diamonds are Kimberley Process Certified”

Good god. Not only am I Bridechiller, now I am also an ethical bride! I have to be because what I’m reading here is pretty horrifying. ‘Blood Diamond’ was based on something apparently.

So not only do these rings you’re looking at cost about 8 times what they will be when your fella walks out of the shop with them (they’re apparently like a car – remove a wadge when you drive it off the show room) but they are also unethical purchases. What to do? 

Engagement rings were originally like collateral. The Romans would pledge rings to one another. If you were rich enough a ring was like a business pledge. 'I will legally tie myself to your daughter; here is something expensive which you can keep as a deposit until I do'. As an avid reader of Georgette Heyer I can also tell you, women can break off an engagement, men cannot. It's just not done, sir! Would the lady keep the ring if she did break it off? Well, if that ring (never diamond by the way) had been 200 years old and in the family as the heir's pledge ring to his future wife? Maybe not. Would you keep your engagement ring if your fiance jilted you? Heck yes. I can imagine the law suits. You can see why ladies were expected to break it off; you'd hardly keep the ring if you made the decision to end it.

Engagement rings became aped by the middle classes in turn. When diamond mines were discovered in parts of Africa and Asia in the late 19th Century, diamonds became a plentiful stone. The aspiring middle classes were the perfect market to flog the sparkly little gems to, especially when they could be pimped up with a smaller but more expensive sapphire or ruby. It's Frances Gerety, an advertising copywriter, who coined the genius slogan 'Diamonds are Forever' in 1947. The rise in pre-marital sex in the 1940's corresponded to a surge in engagement rings. After all, if a ring is a pledge of marriage, why wouldn't you? Diamonds are a girl's best friend and you should always get that ring before you open your legs.... crude but effective. 

 Do you even need to have a diamond? My best friend T has as beautiful sapphire and diamond vintage art deco ring. Mrs McW herself has a custom made sapphire engagement ring which she wears as a combination engagement and wedding ring. Hatton Gardens, the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham and the Lanes in Brighton are all excellent places to go second hand ring shopping.

In the end I saw it in a gallery shop where I live and Mrs McW took BF down the very next day and he bought it.

I think this was a relief for us both. We have just cleared off our debt and there we were considering putting it on a credit card. Which is stupid.

Now I have a wonderful, turn of the century ring in gold. 

And the even better thing other than having a beautiful, individual, ethical (so far as I can tell) and vintage ring which BF made sure fitted by taking one of my old rings with him to have it resized? Looking on Ebay to find one exactly the same being sold for a lot more in America. Result.

Thanks to Shanon Rupp for her amazing article here on how unromantic engagement rings are!

Bridezilla and how she exists in the first place

BF proposed mariage to me a few days ago. This is highly exciting. 

I could never envisage how he would have done it. BF down on one knee doesn’t seem right somehow. Then on a non descript Thursday, about to go to bed (and after some searching questions about whether he was planning to propose at our cancelled dinner that night) he turned around to me while I was reading and asked “Will you Marry Me’. And I said yes. He put the ring on my finger, we both had a cry and then spent the next fifteen minutes feeling a bit amazed, excited and….well, a bit funny.

This isn't even an unusual proposal. I helped my brother when he proposed to my sister-in-law by driving from Kent to Somerset with a bottle of champagne and a bunch of sunflowers, following them in a trench coat and trilby (I was a bit dramatic at the time) up a long, steep hill then hiding it all in a prominent spot. My sister-in-law saw my brother make a bee-line for the flowers and told him he shouldn't go over there as obviously someone had died on that spot. I was sitting down the hill meanwhile chatting to a couple who were having an affair and meeting secretly. I wonder what happened to them…

Unusual proposals include dressing your newborn in a onesie reading ‘Will You Marry my Daddy?’, carving ‘Will you Marry me’ in a Pumpkin (in BF’s handwriting this would not work), recording ‘Will you Marry me’ in a Build a Bear, shouting it out while sky diving, spelling it out in shells when on a helicopter ride….my god the list is endless. My recently friend actually asked her intended, ‘What are you doing down there you dick head’ before she realized he was proposing.

Women can ask men to marry them, traditionally however this was only meant to happen on a leap year as anyone who lost 90 minutes of their life watching the film ‘Leap Year’ will know.

Debretts (who have a whole website devoted to etiquette when it comes to exchanging vows) state that the “location should be memorable and the timing should be carefully thought through…remember there can be no truly offensive way to ask someone to marry you.”

Oh contraire.  

No-one can doubt that BF are a great couple – of course we have our bickering fits and sometimes I want to kill him. But then we also have moments when we get so overwhelmed with love, we have a little cry. So, it’s not like I am one of those women who expect the wedding without the groom. But it had hit us that we were ENGAGED. Actually, properly engaged. To be married. Going from talking about it to doing it was actually terrifying. We were going to actually plan a wedding.

I never thought I'd get married at all so planning a wedding came as something of a shock.

I was twenty nine when I met BF. It was at our mutual best friend’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid, he was an usher. I had brought another date and then caught the bouquet and wound up snogging both of them on the beach before going back to my room with the date. Luckily BF is very open-minded and didn’t think it horrendously forward when I Facebooked him a week later and the rest is history. I never had proper boyfriends before BF. Lots of ‘nearly boyfriends’ and dates, but nothing that lasted past five months.

I have been a bridesmaid seven times (this was Bridesmaid Wedding No seven). Seven different dresses worn, five hen do’s organised, two speeches given and more champagne than I know what to do with has passed through my urinary tract. So I know weddings. Oh yes. I have had the brides ring me up and screech (and screeched back, mainly truthfully) when they got engaged. I doted over the ring. I have even pretended on a few occasions that I liked the groom (mercifully on retrospect this has not happened when I have been a bridesmaid). I have been happy for a lot of people, which is not quite the same thing as being happy for yourself.

Actually there are a lot of pro’s about being single. Being single is fun. But weddings while single? Don’t even get me started on the whole ‘plus one’ thing (finding one or being told you can’t have one). And having to find the money to get to places, to stay in the hotels, afford a present, afford the HEN DO, let alone the wedding itself….. I used to dread the inevitable ‘four a year’ invites arriving (while being very happy for friends FYI in case I sound really ungrateful). It did not help that at the time I was an aspiring artist and couldn’t afford a new pair of jeans. Let alone two nights in a boutique B&B with sea views and shoes in a specific colour requested by a tired, overwrought bride who is trying to organize her big day while holding down a full time job AND keeping her mother –in-law happy.

You can see why I am feeling a bit funny. Suddenly I have gone from badgering him (and boy, did I badger BF. I am amazed the man has been as patient as he has - I have nicknamed it 'Miss Piggying' after the recent Muppets movie) to having a wonderful ring on my finger. I have fallen in love with diamonds – driving home I get lost in their clear, watery glimmer – never wise on the A34. I am also planning the most political, expensive and potentially offensive event of my life to plan. And now I know. It is as if the scales have fallen from my eyes.

This is why those women went mad! This is why they got that weird glint in their eyes when we went dress shopping! This was why they sounded stressed when I got pissy about the £300 hen do and having to buy a new pair of shoes, and when I was horrifically moody about what monstrous frock they were planning to stuff me in. Holy shoot, now I can see how Bridezilla is made!

She starts out feeling excited and full of good hope in the begin. But bit by bit, she is ground down. She has a full time job, potentially a man who cares too little/much/won’t support her ideas for a twenty foot ice sculpture of the two of them etc. and she starts to fold under the pressure. Bit by bit this sane, calm woman begin to fall away like the outside of a melted Easter Egg. And from the wreckage of her inner peace comes the ‘Zilla. Monstrous to all around her. Maybe even to herself. But driven to do one thing and one thing only. HAVE THE BEST AND MOST WONDERFUL DAY OF HER, I MEAN THEIR, LIFE!!!!!! (count the frenetic exclamation marks there – they are there on purpose my friend). And everything has to be perfect. Everything. Down to the last hair, the last favour, the last flower.

I am here to help myself and you through this tangled, woven path. I don't believe in the art of Zen wedding. I don't think it's a real thing. I think the arguments, the tantrums, the fights and the stress is all part of the wonderful human package you get when you through many different personalities, numerous bank balances, several opinions on what makes a 'good wedding' and the expectations of most of your friends and family.

So here I stand on the brink of planning my wedding. I am scared, I am nervous and I am excited! Most of all though, I am terrified.