Saturday, April 23, 2011

(Wedding) Party People!

Let's talk about my wedding party for a minute. They are awesome. The boys are awesome, the girls are awesome. Everyone is awesome. Now let's talk about "Wedding Guilt" - I'm not sure this is an actual thing, and therefore needs to be capitalized, but I've decided it is a "Thing"so just go with it. I feel guilty about the fact that being in a wedding is freakin' expensive. There's dresses to buy and shoes (not that I'm requiring specific shoes - but what girl can resist a shoe buying opportunity) and you have to travel and you have to find a place to crash at night and you have to take time off work. Sometimes more than once - if you're attending the bachelorette party. Every single one of those things costs money - so take all those things and multiply them by mucho dinero ... and you get ... a lot. (I dunno, math isn't my thing. That's Fiance's job).

Where this leaves me is trying to find the most cost effective options for room/board, travel, makeup, hair etc etc etc and most importantly: The Dress. No, not my dress - we already covered that, remember?? I'm talking about bridesmaids dresses. Y'all, let's get real for a second: That shit is expensive! Like, for serious expensive. There's a reason most bridesmaid dress designers don't list their prices online and that reason is: if you looked at that dress and fell in love with it and then looked down at the price you would seriously poop your pants. Because, guys, we are getting married fairly young - our friends are in grad school or unemployed or underemployed and underpaid - and it seems pretty craptacular to be like "Hey guys, I love you so much and you mean so much to me, and I've decided to join my life to some dude's for the rest of forever and I want you to be by my side as my Bridesmaid ... ohyeahandalsoyouhavetospendazilliondollars ... and yeahaboutthedressyou'llTOTALLYwearitagain(lies)andit'satotalbargainat$250" Not cool.

J Crew - I'm looking at you. With your gorgeous dresses and you're completely absurd prices. Chill. Also, Jim Hjelm. And Watters & Watters. You're dresses are totally gorgeous and yet so TOTALLY out of my financial comfort zone. And add to that the fact that we found the boys' $350 suits from Jos A Banks for $99.

This may seem like a non-sequitur, but I assure you it's not. I like to win. It's pretty hard to beat $99. So that brings me to what I'm pretty sure are going to be the bridesmaid dresses.

I'm going to David's Bridal. I know I know, roll your eyes and scoff like "Psh who goes to David's Bridal that is totally bourgeois and also the dresses are tacky" But the dresses are actually kind of legit. I mean, some of them are for serious tacky, but they have a few that I actually really like - they have a cotton fabric with a similar weight and look to the J Crew dresses - and there are a number of available styles so the girls can pick whatever they want and look awesome in pictures. Here's just a few examples:






Best part, guys: Three of the five options have pockets. POCKETS! You can put things in them. Like your cell phone, or lip gloss, or booze for the bride. Or the rings, if that happens to be your responsibility. Whatever - the point is: nobody doesn't like pockets. And the color for the dresses is a dark chocolate brown. I'm not delusional enough to believe these will be worn again, but the color is versatile - so maaaaaaybe one or two of the girls can work it into their wardrobes. At a full price of $139 - which actually still makes me uncomfortable - but with the knowledge that DB is essentially ALWAYS having a $99 sale, I'm hoping to cut some serious costs and maybe wrangle some discounts from the sales associates.

And, to those ladies who read my blog and are in my wedding: thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm going to keep costs down as much as possible in all aspects of this wedding. And also thanks for being so agreeable about the dresses :)

1 comment:

  1. chill on the wedding guilt mare! if i didn't like you i'd be pissed about having to buy a dress [i likely won't wear again] but that'd be weird if i didn't like you and were in the wedding party anyways! and bachelorette parties, while expensive, are something fun to look forward to! and as for the wedding, well your paying for me and the bf to drink and eat and dance... saweet!

    the dresses will look awesome and i love the tan suits for the guys!

    weddings are expensive, but mostly expensive for you! don't worry about us lady. (cause when you're in my wedding, i'm gonna make you do allll the sammmeee things :))

    ReplyDelete