Back to the story of the trip to New York and shopping for wedding dresses with the princess, who is a friend of mine, not my daughter. I am childless, though I am old enough to have a child of marriageable age. I'd be screeching, "No! Are you insane? You can't get married before you're thirty. Go to your room!" I'm really proud of myself for not screeching that at my various classmates from engineering school who did that idiotic thing where they graduate, move, start a proper job for the first time ever, and get married in the space of three weeks, because that's some serious insanity there.
Where was I? The princess, yes. Okay, the princess is an actual grown-up and is paying for her own dream wedding, and she dreams big. I doubt I'd even consider buying such a big fancy gown for myself, but I'm happy to see what it's like. Actually, a story about the dress buying part of the industrial wedding complex would be pretty interesting. The Washington Post just ran an article about wedding dress clearance at Filene's, which is all about how to get that US$5000 dress for $500. The process of getting a bargain dress is much more stressful than when you pay full price.
First of all, you don't make a mad dash, you make an appointment.
The princess's plan for New York was to attend two trunk shows (I saw no trunks), where if she purchased a dress she'd get a 12.5% discount. The first was at Reem Acra's salon in midtown, the second was at Kleinfeld, a bridal shop in Chelsea which carries dresses from many different designers. At both places, the designers were present and schmoozing with the brides. The schmoozing was rather nice. At first the designers only introduced themselves to us and mingled elsewhere while the princess tried on dresses. Once she found a dress that looked really fabulous on her, as opposed to simply great, the designers swooped enthusiastically, calling for veils and playing with her hair to show her how it would look best with the gown.
"And you will wear your hair down, see?"
"Actually I was thinking of wearing it up …"
"No! It is your feature. You must wear it like this, so that it frames your face, yes?"
Also at both places, and maybe wedding dress shops in general (I don't know), the staff all dressed entirely in black. This sets up some interesting visual contrasts, which is why I was disappointed I couldn't take photographs. You have this soft, flattering light, tall mirrors, and a row of happy, excited brides standing on podiums and attended by black-clad women who are fussing with the trains, adjusting the clamps on the backs of the dresses, and crowning them with veils and tiaras.
The deal with the clamps is that there is only one sample dress. All the brides are different sizes, so the attendant uses the clamps to snug up the dress on the small brides. For the larger brides, the dress doesn't get zipped up in back (I forget exactly how they hold it somewhat closed) and a piece of satin gets inserted in the open spot.
Another interesting visual that I wish I could have shot was the plunge into the dress. The princess was trying on strapless gowns with huge skirts puffed out by yards of crinolines. These dresses are heavy and nearly impossible to put on by yourself. You can't step into it because there's only the one sample and they don't want you stepping on it, or tripping and tearing it. So the attendant, all in black, hoists the dress into the air and works her hands in from the bodice to open a path through the inner slip. In profile one sees the layers of the dress constructed like a huge, complicated flower: the slip, the burst of crinoline, the sleek, heavy folds of the skirt. Before all that stands the bride, clad only in a longline bra, her underpants, and high heels, with her arms raised over her head, poised as if to dive into a pool.
One thing I wasn't expecting was the social aspect of the process. Most of the brides have a friend or some family along to help. After seeing what's involved, I can't imagine going through this alone. There's so much emotion and fantasy for the bride, plus the sales attendant who is helping you find the right dress (but she is also trying to make a sale), that it's a good thing to have a companion present to diffuse the focus of the sales pitch and to ask questions and make observations that are impossible for the bride who is sort of oxygen deprived from being clamped into a big heavy gown, like "Yes, that embroidery around the bust is rather enhancing, but it also looks too much like a brassiere." It's even better for the bride if her companion is approximately her same size and height.
For example, I am the exact same height and about the same size as the princess.
At the end, once she'd narrowed down to two dresses, one with the perfect train and one with the perfect bodice, she had me try them on. So I too experienced the plunge through the tunnel of gown, the clamping, and the oxygen deprivation. The skirts of a satin ballgown are so heavy, I can't imagine why she'd want to drag them around for a whole evening, but she's the princess … And I observed that, damn, but when you have the dress on, even with all the mirrors, you totally cannot see how it looks on you, especially from the back. You can see the edge of the train and that's about it.
I also got to experience the transient micro-community that forms around the bride when she has on a good dress. These ladies who were there with another bride drifted over to both the princess and myself to tell us how lovely the dress was and how good we both looked in it. In fact, the princess looked fabulous in all the dresses she tried on, she only had to select the one that made her happiest. Not as easy a choice as you might think. The designer's assistants bustled around, addressing the princess's concerns about how the train was not quite fancy enough. "Oh, we can make it fancier. How about some scalloping? Shall we draw you a sketch?" Neither the princess nor I can draw, so we were disproportionately impressed by the instant sketching.
The micro-communities are interesting. They're dress-centered, and you have the phenomenon where a dress looks great on one bride and all the other brides want to try it on, and then you have the phenomenon where the brides who are getting the same dress bond momentarily over the dress. At the Reem Acra boutique, we met a bride with her mom and sister (also a Reem bride) up from Atlanta who was getting the dress that the princess almost got. Happy past brides make excellent sales pitches. I got to take their picture (with their camera). Now that I think of it, bridal salons should have someone on staff with a good camera to take pictures of the brides. I took pictures of the princess with both my Nikon and her point-and-shoot, and according to the princess, my pictures are "so much better."
It's not necessarily all sweetness and joy at the bridal salon. I mostly saw happy brides, but I'm sure that dress-related conflict arises. We saw some brewing. At Kleinfeld we noticed a dreadful dress on a mannequin, it was a translucent, lacy corset-with-a-skirt thing and our reaction was "Who would want that?" Later we saw someone actually trying it on! She was there with her mother and grandmother, who were sitting on a sofa and circumspectly averting their eyes and remarking, "I don't know. I don't think I like all that ruffley stuff on the skirt." As opposed to screeching, "NO! Are you insane? You are not walking down that aisle in a merry widow, skirt or no!"
And that is the fancy bridal shop experience.
Another excellent argument in favor of elopement?
It depends on the bride, of course.
1391 words | August 7, 2006 10:44 PM | Wish you were here