Category: regular

You’ve all heard the term BRIDEZILLA (it’s also a lovely reality TV show) but what about my term Bride Brain? A Bride with Bridezilla symptoms is cray-cray. She breathes fire and will destroy anyone in her path that dares to challenge her wedding vision. 

A Bride with Bride Brain is kind, silly and forgetful. 

I have Bride Brain. 

Being a hyper type-A personality, I’m obsessed with being organized. I know it’s a great quality for work, since I keep track of someone’s professional life for a living. Meh. But, when it comes to personal things – unless I write that shiz on a post-it note or put it on my iCal the second you tell me…well, there’s a great chance it will be forgotten. I can tell you where all the extra toilet paper is at my bosses house, but I can’t remember if I need to buy any Charmin when I’m at Target for myself. Wow. 

We recently had a housewarming/engagement party. It was awesome, and we were so stoked to show off the house…mainly, we were super jazzed that after the party we didn’t need to spend every waking moment cleaning, laying brick or sweating our faces off working in the backyard. 

Back to Bride Brain…I love throwing parties. I love spending time with friends and family. I really love tacos and beer and s’mores. All excellent reasons to have a party, yes? I would invite everyone in the world to my parties, the more the better! My Bride Brain causes me to forget these things, and makes me leave names off of an email chain. Boo. Then I realize it after the party. Ah, man! Thanks Bride Brain!

So, in the next 57 days (wow, 5-7?!) if I forget you, or something you told me, or maybe I leave the sprinklers on too long – it’s nothing personal. It’s Bride Brain, and it’s only curable by marriage. After which, I will have Wife Brain – which is totally different…right? 

We did it. We’re 4 for 4 on dresses. Nobody pooped in the sink or got sick from Indian Food.

I must say I underestimated the complexity of finding dresses for my BM’s. Ok, so I knew I certainly wasn’t making things easy for myself. Less than 80 days until the wedding. One BM is in Baton Rouge, LA. Blah, blah, blah….oh, and I wanted each girl to have a different dress in a different color. 

Some inspiration:

I figured we could just find each girl a dress in a store at the mall. Not so much. We covered the entire mall looking for pretty dresses in soft solid colors – um, no. We found neon, bold prints, and satin. Gross. 

We also found that Nordstrom now offers a bridal service. Score. And we found that dresses are in stock and can arrive within 3 – 8 business days. Double score. We chose two styles and colors that we really liked. 2 down, 2 to go. 

We ventured to Alfred Angelo (holler, PROM) but it was a total bust. They had nothing we liked, and wouldn’t even rush the dresses if we didn’t order that day. Boo.

A quick Google search told us there was a David’s Bridal a few blocks away, so we made the venture. After some super serious puzzle work (no, serious) since they don’t make every dress style in every color in every size – we really had to game plan it out. Like, to the point of brain numbing exhaustion…thank baby Jesus I had 3 smarty-pants BM’s with me. 

We thought we locked two dresses at David’s Bridal – but we weren’t able to order one of them. No worries – the dress showed up as available in the system – we just needed to call and order it during East Coast Business hours the next day. 

The next day we find out the dress isn’t available and we needed to find one more dress. Back to Nordstroms for the final dress – ordered online and done! 

And that is the saga of the dresses. End scene. 

If you watch TLC you know what that acronym stands for. Say Yes to The Dress! I wasn’t super excited about dress shopping, I wasn’t giddy or even happy about it. Nope. I was dreading it. Wedding dress shopping combines three of my least favorite things: Shopping. Spending Money. Sales People. Not to mention that I may have been scarred by the horrors of shopping for a Prom dress to fit my 5’12” fame. No fun. 

I was also extremely nervous about the timeline. If you watch SYTTD you know that the Bridal Consultants have a heart attack anytime a bride says their wedding is less than 6 months away. Urban myth says it takes 6 months for the dress to arrive, then another several months of fittings and alterations. Blah. I don’t have 6 months. I have 80+ days. 

I’ve also learned that anytime you put the word “wedding” infront of another word it triples the cost of said items. WEDDING flowers, WEDDING cake and WEDDING dress. So. Dumb. 

I refused to spend a small fortune on my dress. It’s a special dress, but you wear it for one day. One very special day, but I can’t even spend $40 on a shirt – how am I going to drop $$$$ on a one time only wear item? No thank you. Not to mention I have plans for a “trash the dress” photo shoot someday ;) 

I had started doing research online. Looking for styles and dresses I liked. I knew I wanted it to have sleeves, my waterpolomanshoulders don’t look super cute in a strapless and I’m not a fan of hooking my thumbs in my dress all night to keep tugging it up. I also really liked the classic and simple look of a lace dress.

Here are a few I was using for inspiration:

None of these dresses were “the one” but they all contributed something to my final pick. Momma-son and I did one day of dress shopping solo. We went to a Bridal Salon in Upland. They have a whole room full of retired sample size dresses that you can purchase for $500 and under. Now we’re talking! 

None of the sample dresses were right, and they would have needed some serious alterations to work. We went back to the salon and I tried on some dresses the consultant pulled for me. I really liked one I tired on, it had everything I wanted…but it was $1,400. Yikes. 

The next day we had plans to meet my MOH (DeeAnna) and Bridesmaid (Haleyface) along with DeeAnna’s Mom and Momma-son at David’s Bridal. At first I wasn’t too hip on the idea of a dress from DB. I’m not a fan of cookie cutter styles. But, I realized that DB was a mass-produced, chain store located around the country. Which means, the dresses are readily available and affordable. It was worth a shot. 

The consultant was helpful and patient. The first dress I tried on became “the one.” I tried on several other dresses but they didn’t measure up to that first dress. It had everything I wanted. Did I cry when I realized it was the dress? Nope. You know me, clothes don’t make me weep. But, I was grinning ear to ear because I realized I didn’t have to try on any more dresses! Yay! 

When we got down to business they had my size in the dress style in the store, which was a prefect fit. The lady from alterations even confirmed I wouldn’t need any alterations done for sizing. Boom! Saving $$! 

We ordered the dress and it’ll arrive a month before the wedding (no extra charge for the rush, either!) and I’ll have plenty of time to get the dress pressed and the bustle added. 

Was dress shopping a magical experience, where there rainbows and unicorns? Not in my dressing room. The best word to describe the whole event – relief. Outside of the weather on the wedding day, almost everything else is in my control. Where we get the food, the flowers, how my make-up looks, the music we play – but the dress, that was totally out of my hands. 

I SYTTD and I’m happy to check that off my list!