Race to the Alter

I am no longer in possession of my wedding dress. And that's just a little scary. 

Ok, not so scary. 

My dress is finally being altered! "It's about time, Miss Goodlaff", you're probably thinking to yourself.


Well, as with most wedding-related things, there's a story here. My dress altering story begins the day I pulled my fantastic custom-made Dolly Couture wedding dress from the box and found that while delightful, the skirt was massively poofy...  The dress had too much skirt, and that's coming from someone who has wanted to live in tulle-laden ballerina land all her life (some of us never grow up).

A few weeks after getting the dress, I called a local seamstress, who came highly-recommended by one of my favorite local fabric stores. She told me that she would give me a call when she would be back up in town (the second week of March), and that we would have plenty of time to do my alterations in the six weeks prior to the wedding.

Dressing the MOB

Is there anyone else out there that wonders why it is that the Mother of the Bride is supposed to be dressed like a dowdy dowager?  Why is it on the day that the bride is supposed to look her best, her mom has to look so, well--old?  Mama Goodlaff is not the Queen Mum, and we both agree that her dressing as if this were true is out of the question. But, as you can see, the bridal industry generally thinks otherwise.

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Given the general reputation for MOB dresses, one day I turned to Google to find the worst offender of all, and was not disappointed. I was able to send Mama Goodlaff this picture:

"What did I ever do to you to make you hate me this much?" she asked.

Mama Goodlaff printed the picture, carried it around in her wallet, and showed a lot of people her "mom-in-the-box" Mother of the Bride dress. 

But in all seriousness, Mama Goodlaff just wasn't finding dresses online and in magazines that fit what she was looking for. 

She just turned 50 (Hmmm, I hope she doesn't kill me for broadcasting that on the Internet...), and she certainly doesn't look it. She has a great sense of style and the typical bridal store's idea of what her outfit should look like would age her about 40 years. That just will not do, so this past weekend Mama Goodlaff and I set off in search for a Mother of the Bride dress that was not frumpy, ugly, or peach, and hopefully didn't cost an arm and a leg. 

The One That (Finally) Was

I've told you all about the ones that weren't, but now it's time for me to show you the one that is!

Two months finally came and went and one Friday night I found myself on a plane bound for Burbank Airport.  It was a dual-purpose trip: first and foremost, it was a celebratory birthday visit in honor of Goodlaff Bridesmaid Sunrise. The second purpose was my much-anticipated trip to Dolly Couture to finally try on the dresses I fell in love with!

Saturday finally came and Bridesmaid Sunrise, Bridesmaid Cosmo, Sister Goodlaff, and I met in front of Dolly Couture's gorgeously-retro storefront:

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Dreaming of Disaster

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It's official: I've had my very first wedding-related nightmare. Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long for me to get there--now the flood gates are wide open.

Here's how it happened:
I'm standing in the middle of a Jamaican hotel room, freaking out because I haven't found a makeup artist for my ceremony the next day.  As luck would have it, one of the hotel staff members happened to be in the room, listening to me.  She left the room and came back a few minutes later, telling me she'd found a celebrity makeup artist willing to do my makeup at $8 an hour.  Sold! 

At that point I decided it would be a good time to pull my wedding dress from the closet and steam it to get the wrinkles out, but what I pulled out of the bag was nothing like the wedding dress I'd picked out.  It was an off-the shoulder, pewter-gray dress made of shiny crinkled fabric, with an empire waist.  It had sleeves that someone had cut off any run-of-the-mill white cotton long sleeved t-shirt.