The MoBster Diaries

Monday, October 29, 2007

Seasonal Brides

October brides are something special. My sister was one. Daughter Kate will be one. And yet, there are some pretty famous October brides that have been filling the airwaves (airwaves? surely, I mean satellite waves?) the last few days, so let's give them their due.

The Bride of Frankenstein. The Number One best of all time. The original corpse-bride. Elsa Lanchester gets to play both author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and the monster's potential mate. Her reaction to seeing the monster for the first time? Classic!

Bride of Chucky. A doll like Chucky deserves Tiffany. I can't hear Meg Tilley (real-life Meg Tilley, I mean) interviewed to this day without hearing dear Tiffany. Anyway, it's a marriage made in Mattel. Probably Made in China, too, since this pair is dangerous for people of all ages.

Corpse Bride. Not as good as Nightmare Before Christmas, but then we're judging brides here, not films. You get two brides in this Tim Burton movie, one that's alive and one that's dead. And both are likeable, so whichever one ends up with the Johnny Depp character is OK by the viewer.

There are many more horror-brides out there (Dracula had lots of 'em - that's his M.O.), but I think these three take the cake. Still, Frankenstein's honey far out-paces any of the others, in my opinion.

The next wedding horror for MoB? Sending out the engagement party invitations. By the end of this week. Yikes! I'm scared already!

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

This time next year . . .

. . . I hope we'll be sleeping in, all wedding preparations running as planned. But we probably won't be.

Yes, the Big Day is one year from today. The good news is that next year is a Leap Year, so we get an extra day to make it happen.

The plans are going smoothly so far.

The dress decision has been made. On one hand, this is good - no more bridal salons! On the other, I'm still in the squirreling-away-the-wedding-funds mode and wasn't expecting to have to come up with half the cost of the dress this soon. Anybody got any odd jobs they need doing between now and November 16?

At any rate, the church and reception site are booked, wedding planner on board, dress found, wedding invitation list well-honed - so I think we're doing pretty well. As someone told Kate the other day, we've got the big stuff done up front, so relax and enjoy it for a while.

So I will relax and enjoy it for a while (once I scrape together the dress down-payment). Because who knows what kind of glorious chaos will be in full-throttle a year from today?

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Monday, October 15, 2007

"Wedding" and "Humor" are not mutually exclusive








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Thursday, October 11, 2007

It's all about the dress, except when it's about the veil

During last Thursday's bridal salon marathon, one phrase kept surfacing as Kate tried on dresses.

"I wonder how this will look with the veil."

The veil. It's the only bridal attire I have to offer my daughter, since I wore my mother-in-law's wedding dress. And because the dress was free, Mother thought we could spend a little more on a veil. We made a special trip to Atlanta from Chattanooga and walked through the hallowed archway of The Bridal Salon at Rich's Department Store.

Before the days of fancy couture bridal boutiques, Rich's was the place to go for wedding clothes. It's where the designer gowns were housed at the time. And walking in was like entering a church. So getting a veil at Rich's was a big deal in 1973. We spent about $250 dollars on it, which was big money at the time.

Alas, the veil has been stored in a non-climate-controlled storage unit in Atlanta, Georgia for the past 18 months, and I had no idea of its condition. It never crossed my mind that Kate would want to wear it since it was a relic from the 70's. I didn't treat it with much tender-loving-care.

And every time I heard "I wonder how the dress will look with the veil," which became the phrase of choice for our entire retinue (consisting of MoB, step-MoB, and one Friend of Bride) plus whatever sales assistant was helping us, I got a little nervous. For all I knew, rats had made a nice little shredded nest of the netting and lace that was once a cathedral-length wedding veil.

It was with much trepidation that daughter and I struck out early last Friday morning to retrieve the veil from the storage unit. We had to shake the rat-droppings off the battered box. I was not feeling very hopeful.

But when we got home and spread the veil out on the bed, it was absolutely perfect! Not one rip or tear, no discoloration. Unbelievable! Obviously, the Juliet cap will have to go (that 70's thing, ya' know), which shouldn't be a problem, but other than that it is in tip-top condition. Wheeeeeew!

Kate and I decided to indeed "see what it looks like with the veil" Monday afternoon. Just the two of us. Well, both of our favorite dresses looked spectacular with the veil. We had fun playing around with the ways in with the yards of net and lace could be reconfigured and updated without the headpiece.

And we've saved about $1800+, which is what we've been told a veil like mine would cost today. Kate and I can't believe our good luck. And I'm touched she wants to wear it.

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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

It's all about the dress

Three bridal salons in one day almost did me in. And I wasn't even the one trying on the dresses.

Thursday's marathon left my mind numb and my eyes glazed over by the time we hit the the third place. Kate held up very well, however, which is all that matters I guess. We saw lots and lots of gorgeous dresses - organzas, laces, and other fluffy and not-so-fluffy stuff. Kate looked good in most all of them.

I think she tried on more dresses at the third stop - Priscilla of Boston - than the other two. Still, the advantage goes to our first stop, Anne Barge Atelier. All the other dresses were judged by the two favorites found there early on, and only one other dress entered the running once we left Anne's place.

This dress thing is an interesting business, but with the amount of money involved, I guess it would have to be. The bride-to-be is waited on hand and foot by her sales assistant (though I'm sure they have a fancier title than that). Like anything, if a connection is made early on with the sales assistant, it makes a difference to the whole experience. We just didn't click with the sales woman at the second location, which colored the way we saw the dresses in her shop. We did like one dress there, but her attitude nixed it, in the end.

Am I going to show you pictures of the top two contenders? No way. But you can see how cute Kate looked after trying on the dresses in the Anne Barge salon! I'll write more on the dress (and veil!) experience over the next few days, because one blog-post is not enough to cover it. But for now, I need to get some perspective on the process and options, as well as recover from the snow-blindness brought on by a world of white, pearl, and champagne dresses. Oh, yeah. And sticker-shock.

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