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.