Seen, Heard and Overheard

What NOT to wear in the communal dressing rooms at bridal dress shops

At the large bridal district retailer where I purchased my dress, brides-to-be are given a tour of the dress area (and told to stay away from certain racks if "on a budget" - meaning if you plan to spend less on your gown than, say, you did on your first car). Then, after you pick out a slew of plastic-wrapped wrong-sized white dresses, you're ushered into the Communal Fitting Room.

There are several of these, with walls of mirrors and little boxes you can stand on. You're told to leave on your bra and underwear, and then the nice employees help you dive into dresses. It's great fun. I've been in these rooms three times: once when my sister was getting married and twice in the last few weeks. Two of those times, I've suffered with Thong Girls in the facing mirror.

After wrestling my way into layers of white gown, I'd look in the mirror and try to imagine what I'd look like if this dress wasn't a) 3 sizes too big, b) a foot too long and c) accompanied by some strange girl's behind. See when you're looking in a mirror, and Thong Girl is in the mirror across from you waiting for someone to bring her MORE dresses, her butt is reflected in the mirror you're looking into. And that is not something I want to look at.

Note to prospective brides: Please, please, don't wear a thong when dress shopping. The other brides thank you. (And despite Thong Girl and her entourage of 7 squealing friends/relatives, I did get my dress. Well, it's ordered, it'll be here in 4 months-ish. Then it will need altered, of course.)

***

After the dress buying experience, we checked out bridesmaids' dresses, and overheard one of the patient staffers talking on the phone to a customer who was obviously upset at the way she'd been treated the previous day. Come to find out the woman (who was the mother of the bride) had tried to put more dresses on hold than the store allows. So the employee is explaining this:
"Ma'am, we tried to compromise with you. Our policy is to hold up to four dresses. You wanted us to hold 25, and we ended up holding 18. I thought we were being accommodating."

25 dresses??? I've heard of bridezilla, but this woman must be her mother!

"Engagement" photo

We set the camera up to take this shot automatically about an hour after we got engaged, so it was sometime after midnight. (Note the aforementioned laundry basket in the background!)

The Engagement

Merry Day after Christmas! I'm back at work and back on the blog!

As promised, here is the story of our engagement.

My birthday started out well, as a coworker surprised co-birthday girl Julie (the stylista) and me with multiple cakes. I was wearing a sparkly shirt and skirt all day in hopes that I would get to spend the evening with John watching the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Aronoff. (I'd not-so-subtly asked for tickets for my birthday.) I kept saying my theme for my birthday was sparkly, having no clue what my words were actually foretelling.

After work, John picked me up and we went to dinner downtown before heading to the Aronoff, where I thoroughly enjoyed the show. (Dinner was not so spectacular, but John promised ice cream after the show to make up for it.)

Since I still had my car parked at work, he dropped me off at it after the show, and he said he was going to the store to buy ice cream. I went home and did the usual mail opening, email checking, whatever, until he arrived with bags of banana-split making items. He made me a banana split with candles in it and sang happy birthday. I ate the deliciously chocolatey ice cream dish and was still sitting on the couch. John kept sort of looking at me funny and it was getting unnerving, so I said "It's 11:30, we could turn on Jay (Leno)." He then said to hold on a second, he had something for me. Then he got down on one knee, pulled a ring out of his pocket and proposed. I said yes and was sort of shaking and a little teary. We just sat there talking non-stop with excitement (surrounded by a bunch of clean laundry that I hadn't had a chance to fold yet!)

Eventually we set up my camera to take a few pictures to capture the moment, and agreed that we would not tell anyone the next day (which was the day before Thanksgiving) until we could tell our parents in person. So I spent all day at work literally ready to bust out the news - but I couldn't. It was a little difficult to concentrate that day too, and I had the hardest time editing the following week's Christmas events cover story. I hightailed it out of work as soon as I could, and met John (he works in West Chester) on the way to Middletown. We surprised my parents with the news (unfortunately they were in the midst of a plumbing disaster with a non-working drain while trying to make Thanksgiving dinner for 9 people). After getting their blessing (and calling my sister to tell her) we headed back to Cincinnati to share our news with John's parents and siblings. They were equally excited as we started talking about plans and what dates already had conflicting events.

About 24 hours after I got the ring, we finished the rounds and were ready to celebrate Thanksgiving!

The following Monday we told our coworkers and many other friends. I was not the only person in the office with a new ring - a staffer in our magazine division had gotten engaged over the weekend as well - which is pretty crazy considering there are only about 30 people who work in this division.

I'll post one of the pictures of John with a VERY sparkly me later:). I forgot the camera at home. Whoops.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to CiN's new BrideBlog! I am currently CiN's bride-to-be, and I offered to write this blog and chronicle my wedding planning.

First, a little about me: I'm the content editor at CiN and I've been with CiN since its inception.
My fiance and I started dating about six weeks after CiN launched, and we got engaged last month on Nov. 21 (my birthday!) More about that later ...

Planning a wedding seems nearly a rite of passage for many people in their 20s and 30s, which is why I thought this blog could be fun. I'm hoping to hear from other brides-to-be and discuss some of what we're doing. I'm also going to be upfront about asking advice from people who've recently been in the same perfect comfortable white strappy sandals :). I think a lot of people like reading about others' weddings. I admit, I've certainly looked on the Knot and read the stories of people I'm acquainted with!! And just think how many magazine covers Tom and Katie and all the celeb du jour weddings before them got! We love a good wedding story!

Our month has been a whirlwind so far. Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll probably agree that I can be an uptight person. But I'm almost surprising myself with how laid back I've been so far in the planning. I just don't think I could take visiting a dozen reception halls, trying on scores of dresses or debating the merits of periwinkle vs. aubergine. Whatever.

Our wedding is June 30 (I'm not getting any younger!!), so we've got to be speedy and pretty decisive. It was easy to pick a spot for the ceremony: We both go to the same church. We toured two reception spots (I was adamant that I wanted the reception at a hotel, so that narrowed down the options), and picked one. I've almost decided on a dress. Now we're in the midst of picking a DJ, florist, cake baker, photographer, etc. I've been looking at bridesmaid dresses, but don't want to decide on one until I finalize my dress choice.

There's a lot to do, so do you have any advice? I'm open to any suggestions for vendors you had a good experience with at your wedding, so respond away!! But let's keep it positive. I don't want to be a party to slamming some unsuspecting florist!

Next up:
Our Engagement Story

Followed by:
What Not to Wear in the communal dressing room at the wedding dress store!