I bought a dress!

Heyguesswhat? I bought a wedding dress!

Well, I suppose that technically my mother bought it for me. But the important part is that I have a wedding dress! All ordered and stuff!

And the most shocking part is: I GOT A VEIL. I know, right? I wasn't planning on using one at all-- in fact, I used to think they were kind of creepy. Like, why do I have to veil myself? Can you say fundamentalism? But wedding magazines always say to try one on just in case, and it turned out that the one I tried on look perfect with my dress!

Okay, so since the linking-to-dresses operation hasn't been going very well, I'm going to place a lovely photo on the dress on the side bar here, and you can peruse it at your leisure. This picture doens't show the full dress, though, and you can't see the lovely back, so if you want the full picture, do this:

1. Go here.
2. Click on "bridal gowns" in the top left corner.
3. Choose "view all dresses" from the left sidebar.
4. Go to page 2.
5. My dress is in the top row, second from the left. It's style T9264. Click on the dress and it'll show you all the details.

The version of the dress in all these pictures is in white, though, and I got mine in ivory, so it looks a little bit, well, more refined. In fact, with the veil on it looks slightly antique, which is cool.

Oh, and I can't find any pictures of the veil online, but it's ivory too, with detailing that almost exactly matches my dress. I always thought veils were awful, but now I'm totally in love with mine.

And just so future brides know: when you buy a dress from any official wedding dress place, they expect you to buy the special slip and bra, too. These two things are actually what make the dresses look so nice, because they suck you in (the "bra" is actually more like a corset) and give the skirt its shape (the slip contains a massive amount of tulle). So calculate those into your budget as well-- they'll probably run you a little over a hundred dollars unless you get them used, which I certainly didn't count on (although thankfully my mom did).

So to my friends who might get married in the future: if you happen to need a wedding bra in a 34B, or a slip in a size 4 (sizes run small in wedding dresses, so calculate two sizes up-- I usually wear a 2, so they gave me a 4), you're welcome to them once I get married. All yours!

Trying on dresses is such a crazy, weird experience. They have this platform, right, with all sorts of lights, and there are a couple of dressing rooms there, and a huge mirror. And you just try on the dresses and parade around in front of everyone in the store-- in fact, since I had on my bra and slip and was completely covered from bust to toe, I just changed into the different dresses right there in the middle of the store. And random people (other brides, other brides' moms, curious salespeople) will just show up and smile at you and offer their two cents. It's kind of a strange process, and it can feel a little bit stressful. My main problem wasn't that everyone was looking at me, but that they all wanted to know how much I liked or didn't like each dress. The thing is, wedding dresses are specially made to make you look gorgeous, so every wedding dress looked like a million bucks. How could I say anything bad about any of them?

But I'm done with it, now. I feel really really really bad that my mom spent all that money on my dress (I feel gauche telling everyone how much I paid, but just so you guys know, the price of the dress isn't all you have to pay-- you also need those two undergarments as well as alterations before the wedding, and I got a veil, so that was even more). She assures me, though, that it's okay and that she budgeted for this much, and my dad said he planned on spending almost twice that much, so that makes me feel a little bit better.

So this shindig is really going down! Let's do this thing, yo!