The Shoe Dilemma

Shopping for shoes is about as much fun for me as a root canal. I have wide feet, and although I know what styles I like, I never can find shoes to fit right. So many styles don't come in wide sizes, so I'm forced to decide if I want to buy a shoe that's too long, but finally wide enough, or just squeeze into the medium width size in the right length. In the end, I waste a lot of money on shoes I never wear because they don't fit right and are too painful to make it through a day.

I tried on a lot of wedding shoes. I went to David's and tried on their wide sizes. They were all blah... to me, anyway.

Enter Zappos.com.

Finally, I went online and searched on the zappos.com site. For those of you who haven't been to zappos, it is literally shoe heaven. I had ordered with success from there before, so I figured it was worth a shot. In the end I chose 4 pairs that looked like they might work. I ordered them all (free shipping!), and when they arrived, I tried them all on. One was absolutely perfect, style AND fit. That was my shoe! I sent the rest back. (Free returns!!)

Voila- shoe shopping comes to my living room.

You can't see the detail that well in the picture, but the shoes match the tiny aurora borealis beading along the waistline of the dress. It's like they were made to go together.
For about $50.

Mother-of-the-Bride Dress

My mom agonized over her dress for months. She and I live in different cities, so I wasn't able to shop with her. She also wasn't all that computer savvy at the time (although know she "facebooks"- go mom!), so the best we could do was descriptions over the phone. I told her she should wear a dress she loved and felt good in. She went to several bridal salons, but she said everything felt to fancy or matronly. She found her dress at Macy's, on sale, for around $100. And she looked radiant. She got the great silver sandals to go with it, and now she wears those with other things too. Great choice, mom! (You'd never believe she's 62, would you?! And single... ;)

My Girl's Dresses

I've had the honor of being in a number of weddings, which were all wonderful experiences. The one problem is that being IN a wedding can be very expensive if the bride asks the 'maids to buy certain things to create a "look." I wanted my girls to look classy, but I didn't want them to have to worry about expenses, so I asked them all to wear a black dress of their choosing, with black dress sandals. My only request was that the dress be knee-length or below. As a gift, I gave them all antique aurora borealis crysal necklaces. They all looked absolutely beautiful, and I couldn't have been happier with the classy combination. Best of all, they really CAN wear their dresses again if they want. Since they all lived in different cities, there was no need to coordinate the buying of the dresses either!

The Wedding Shoppe Review

The trip to the Wedding Shoppe was a spur-of-the-moment adventure with my maid of honor, Jessie. She and I had a Saturday free, and we decided to go try on some dresses. She and I had been to the Wedding Shoppe once before to help another find a dress, and we had a good experience then. I also liked the setting: a neat old historic house on Grand Ave.
So, off we set.

First recommendation: Make an appointment, especially if you go on a Saturday!!

You can go without an appointment, but you get on a "waitlist", and then when a spot opens up, they will call you. When we got on the waitlist, we were told it might be up to three hours before there was space for us. Unfortunately, all the dresses are upstairs with the fitting rooms, so you can't even look at the dresses while you wait. You can, however, look at invitations and other wedding accessories on the first floor- they bill themselves as a "one-stop wedding shop".
Since we had nothing better to do, we put our name on the list and went shopping for other things. There's no shortage of places to shop or eat on Grand Ave, so we passed the time quickly.

Once called upstairs, we removed our shoes and were introduced to our clerk. I brought some pictures to give her ideas of styles I liked- that helped her bring me specific dresses. You can look through all of their dresses yourself, and they do have a very good selection. They also had a fairly big price range, and they ask you for a dress budget right up front, so they won't bring you something to fall in love with that you can't afford.
The shoppe was pretty busy, so I was glad to have Jessie as my helper in getting in and out of dresses- it made the process much faster. The clerk spent most of her time returning my rejects and bringing me more to try on. She seemed to be helping several of us.
So, if you want to be "waited on hand-and-foot", don't go on a Saturday!

When it gets down to decision time, they ask you to limit yourself to three choices for them to write down. They don't allow photos, but the prices and some designers are available right on the tags.

It wasn't a high-pressure selling situation, I was able to try on as many dresses as I wanted, and I didn't feel rushed at all. They followed up with me once, but didn't bombard me with phone calls later. So, overall, I would say it was a pretty good experience.

Amy Jane's Bridal Review

I went by myself to Amy Jane's Bridal on Selby. After all, it's in my neighborhood and my dog and I have walked by the windows, oh, about 1000 times or so. I always admire whatever gorgeous creation they have in the window- even if it's decidedly not my style.
I knew I probably wouldn't find my dress there (and even if I did I probably wouldn't be able to afford it), but I still wanted to go.
After all, I'm a bride now, so now I get to go in places that I only used to look at from the outside. (God help me with that attitude!)
So, my visit:
The gal who helped me was very nice- and very low pressure.
You get the sense of it being a little "higher-class" when you walk in and you have to take off your shoes. They'll offer you tea or something else to drink and then ask you to look around at the dresses and choose styles you like.
They don't have a huge selection- I was surprised at how few gowns they had available- but their selection is representative of a lot of different styles. And, all of their dresses are made after you order them- so you can custom-ize your dress with features you like, minus features you don't.
They had GREAT veils. They hand-make all their veils at the store, and I found them reasonably priced and very well made.
They also have some very cool wedding jewelry from local jewelry designers.
Those were the highlights for me!

David's Bridal: Pros and Cons

Ok, so you know I got my dress from David's Bridal. And ONLY my dress. Why? Well, because the other items in the whole "package deal" are pretty pricey, and you can get more for your money elsewhere.
So, here are some things you should know if you plan to go shopping there:

1) The sales clerks work on commission.
Depending on the clerk, this can mean a higher-pressure selling situation. I was talking with a gal who used to work for David's, and she noted that they were trained to "upsell," (selling you a similar but more expensive item) or add items. For instance, she always gave the potential customers undergarments, slips, and crenaline to try on dresses. These are things that you may or may not need with your dress, but as you are trying it on "in the moment," you think they are MUST-HAVE items. They also have a pretty big markup, so the profit margin for David's is pretty large- you can probably find the same things cheaper somewhere else.

But the clerks will ask you if you want these things and they will want to write it all up and get it paid for in full right away- be prepared to thank them kindly and say no, at least until later when you can assess what you really do and don't need.
I know a lot of wedding dress shops operate on commission, but I have experienced the
"hard sell" most keenly at David's.

2) You can buy the dress you try on "off the rack" but you can also order a brand new dress that has never been tried on for the exact same price. It seems like they are pretty up-front about this, but it's good to know, just in case.

3) They have sales in January and June. Most dresses are $50 off at that time.

4) They charge you for a garment bag to keep the dress in! This is ridiculous. But another example of how the actual dress is just a starting point to get you to buy, buy, buy. If you have a nice garment bag, take that instead.

5) Their tiaras and veils that are WAYYYYY overpriced. I found a much more beautiful veil in a higher quality material at one of the high-end wedding shops in the cities for half of what David's charged (and I still didn't pay that- I got mine on ebay for $12.).

Anyone else have David's experiences to share?

The Dress

My mom lives in Michigan, and I live in Minnesota. So, after Sean proposed at Christmas, I knew the only time we would have to go dress shopping together was during our Christmas trip there. I didn't have much notice, and I haven't lived in Grand Blanc for over ten years, so I had no idea where to go dress shopping. We opted for the easy: David's Bridal.
I'm not a huge fan of David's in concept. To me, it's sort of the Wal-Mart of the wedding industry, in terms of business ethics and monopoly. But I do see why brides shop there. They've got a lot of stuff, and it's easy.
We went dress shopping on the day after Christmas.
Convenient, since most people go shopping on the day after Christmas for anything BUT wedding dresses. We had a very nice sales clerk all to ourselves, and since they weren't busy with appointments, we got to stay as long as we wanted. (Apparently, David's kicks you out after 2 hours when the clerk goes on to her next appointment.)
It's a good thing for us that we did have as much time as we wanted, because my mom and sister-in-law wanted me to try on everything.
My mom liked the more fancy dresses, but they weren't my thing.
Teri did a great job of helping me narrow down things that looked good on me and were also my style.
And, surprisingly, I had fun.
I found one dress that I absolutely loved and everyone agreed was beautiful. I didn't purchase it right then (much to the clerk's dismay), but I kept thinking about it.
After all that, I tried on some more dresses here in the Twin Cities (a review of dress shops to come...)
In the end, I had fallen in love with one of the first dresses I tried on at David's. It was affordable, and it was on SALE ($350).
So, now it's mine.
THE DRESS (no peeking, Sean!)