My Bridal Trauma

So as I previously told you during my engagement I kept a blog of my bridal comings and goings. I wanted to share with you my most awful/traumatic/crazy bridal experience. This is not to scare you but just to make sure that you keep your eyes open and watch out for the crazies! Oh and one more thing! PUT EVERYTHING ON A CREDIT CARD!

Drama & trauma

Me & the Hubby at our Bridal Shower courtesy of my mom.

The picture above is remind me WHY I'm getting married. I'm in love and I just want to be with him. HOWEVER, after last week I was ready to elope. Seriously. Oh, where do I begin?

My mom called me and said, "I need to tell you something but I don't want you to freak out. It is really awful, but try to stay calm." This, of course, immediately pushed me into freak out mode. Mom says, "The Bridal Boutique is gone. Closed. Maureen told me about it today and I checked and they are closed. There are no bridesmaids dresses and no dress or veil for you. We are out the money and they are gone." I literally fell out of my chair. Literally. And then I started to cry. It just got worse from there. Over the next couple of days we did a lot of investigating and calling and found out that yes indeed, they were gone! We contacted all the news stations, the BBB, consumer reports, etc. I also contacted the manufacturers of both my dress and the bridesmaids dresses. Come to find out when I placed my order and PAID money in February for my dress and March for the bridesmaids NO ORDER WAS PLACED. That's right. NO ORDER WAS PLACED. In fact, the manufacturer of my dress said that the store hadn't placed an order since 2006 and as of February 2007 (when I ordered my dress at the store) they didn't even HAVE an account. Lovely. I went through the stages. I cried hysterically, got REALLY mad and then just went numb. We were scrambling to see if we could get our money back from the credit cards but not everyone paid with a credit card. My sister paid in cash and Silvia paid with check. Lesson WELL learned. Always put it on the card. Now let me point out that I am one lucky bride! I had 5 months to get a new dress. Unlike the bride that first discovered they were closed, she only had TWO weeks. I feel so bad for her and all the others. But the idea of having to go look again after I had been so happy and successful the first time just made me queasy. In the midst of all this bridal drama/trauma work was insane, people were driving me nuts and I wasn't getting to work out my anger at my Combat Fit class.

So I went to yet another dress shop to get another bridal gown. I walked in and within 5 minutes was basically back in tears. But let me just say KEEPSAKE BRIDAL is awesome! They were so nice and helpful and so understanding. They had been getting lots of frantic calls from brides and they are taking it all in stride. My mom, sister and the clerks all suggested I try on dresses again just to make sure. So I did. I had a bad taste in my mouth regarding the dress I had picked but I just loved it so much I wasn't sure if I wanted to change to another dress. But I did. I actually found 2 dresses and couldn't decide which to go with. I finally did though. I picked a new dress, veil, everything. We actually ended up getting mine, my mom's dress and shoes, all the bridesmaids and the flower girls. We even picked out the invitation. All in all a very productive bridal day. Emotionally exhausting though. So here is the original dress for us all to ooo and ahh over. Yes it is beautiful. And sad because it is being replaced.

Casablanca Bridal, Style 1772.

So this is the dress I ended up with. I do think that this dress is more "me" and does look better on me than the original dress. But I could totally have done without that stress!Photo courtesy of The Memory Journalists

Photos courtesy of family/friends.