Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Bradford Photography
I continue to be humbled and grateful for the amazing fortune that has come our way these past few months. My wedding day was such a blur of wonderful moments: lots of hard, belly laughter, cutting loose on the dance floor to killer music, re-connecting with friends and family and of course being so in love. It was incredible! And to think, at the end of it all, I get to spend the rest of my days with my best friend… perfection. 
A huge contributing factor to my incredible wedding was, without a doubt, my dress. I. LOVED. MY. DRESS. Ladies, loving your dress is critical to the overall giddiness you experience at the wedding. I am convinced! Just two weeks before my wedding, it was not this way.
Ken and I initially planned on having a very tiny wedding of just family, when we were first engaged. It was to be a simple affair of just dinner and cocktails inside our condo complex building. Since we insisted on paying for the entire dinner ourselves, we wanted to save and cut cost wherever possible. In doing so, I convinced myself that it would be financially prudent to get a knock off dress from Hong Kong. I figured – the dress will be worn once, so spending a fortune on a garment that will be on for all of 6 hours seemed wasteful.
As time went on, things changed… drastically. We changed our minds about having a small wedding because it never felt right to exclude my extended family (despite having grown up with them), just because they were not immediate members. So after lots of humming and hawing between the two of us, we decided ‘Big and Tradional, HERE WE COME!’
I continued to hang onto my original, made in Hong Kong dress, however. When the dress first arrived to me, it came inside out, balled up in a DHL bag. After carefully removing it from its packaging, I immediately tried it on and discovered the thing was HUGE… at least 2 sizes too big and way too long. I was determined to keep an open mind throughout and reasoned this was all to keep costs down, letting the heinous packing job roll off my back.
My mother actually did not recoil when she saw the dress on me the following weekend. I took this as a good sign, as my mom – though dear and kind, has never been one to dole out compliments… especially to her daughter! Mom assured me that she could alter the dress by taking it in and up. So I again, I tried to let go of that nagging feeling about the dress not being right.
And she did! About 2 weeks prior to the wedding, the dress fit like a glove… sort of. I never noticed the way the torso of the dress even looked, because I was so focused on its hugeness on me. When Mom finished altering it, the shape of the gown looked really odd…. but I was not sure if the oddness was because I was in full OCD-mode or if it really did not look right.
I took it home with me that night and thought about it… a lot. I made an appointment to try it on for my friend AJ at BRAVO, who promised he would be truthful. With 2 tiny weeks to go, sugar-coating and appeasement would be useless. When the time finally came for me to try it on… the truth came out! I hadn’t even removed the dress off the hanger yet before I was informed that the gown was polyester… despite the fact that it said ‘double-faced silk’ online.
When I finally had the gown on… OMG… he gasped, “That dress is soooooo wrong for you!” I blinked. Once. Twice. “It shortens your torso and gives you no shape.” It took me a minute to process his words… then I began to whimper, “Could it be fixed?” AJ lowers his brow, ”Fixing this would be like opening a can of worms. Plus it’s a polyester… you don’t want to look cheesy on your wedding… trust me.” He saw the horrified look in my eyes. “But don’t worry, I will make you a new one! Change out of the dress and I will show you what I have in mind.”
Back in my street clothes, I approached his counter. I was astonished to see a large a bolt of silk chiffon fabric as well as a sketch of a gorgeous, slit-to-there strapless number that had a flowing chapel length train. I died… “You can make that?! Within the next TWO WEEKS?!” AJ responds, “This is what I do! I can make you this dress with my eyes closed.” I lept in the air and hugged him for what seemed like 10 full minutes!!! As I walked out of BRAVO, AJ hollered, “Stay excited! You will be radiant in this new dress, I promise!” To which I responded, “Eeeeekkkkkk!!!!!!”
And there you have it… the story of how my wedding dress came to be. My final fitting was exactly 1 week before the wedding. AJ, Mr. Miracle Worker, produced a custom-designed, silk chiffon wedding dress for me within the week, and I could not have been more thrilled with the result. Christine and Peter Martin captured the beauty of my dress exquisitely. Please visit our featured wedding on their web site (Ken and Diana): Elizabeth Bradford Photography and see for yourself!
Hello and welcome to my blog! I hope to be able to pass on valuable insights and advice about the fabulous world of wedding planning.
Featured in Grace Ormonde Wedding Style.
