<p>I love betsey johnson-
But I am still recovering from my little girl- the one who never went through a pink and purple stage,wore a dress less than 5 times in 10 years, went for years without allowing me to brush her hair ( I did it when she was asleep- cut it then too), has been looking through the windsor catalog and telling me which ones are acceptable and which ones would be acceptable if they cut this off of them or did that differently :)</p>
<p>Omigod. I have been imagining my D in a wedding dress ever since she hit 5’9" and stopped growing. I hope full skirts are back in style by the time she gets married. But then, I was reading Bride Magazine during the break between verbal and math sections when I took the GMAT and I had barely met my H-to-be at that point. How fun. Congratulations to the both of you.</p>
<p>Momofthree,</p>
<p>You said that her grandmother sews. Maybe there is a dressmaker that she can see also which would cut costs also. Another option </p>
<p>got to <a href=“http://www.mccalls.com%5B/url%5D”>www.mccalls.com</a></p>
<p>she may find a pattern by butterick or vogue (including designer dresses)</p>
<p>She could come into NYC get a nice duchess satin (or whatever the dress calls for) Just a quick sample</p>
<p><a href=“http://store.sewingtoday.com/cgi-bin/voguepatterns/shop.cgi?search=bridal&TI=20001&M=&pageSize=9&s.search.all.x=15&s.search.all.y=16[/url]”>http://store.sewingtoday.com/cgi-bin/voguepatterns/shop.cgi?search=bridal&TI=20001&M=&pageSize=9&s.search.all.x=15&s.search.all.y=16</a></p>
<p>There are a ton of stores along 6th ave (34-37ths street where she could look for veils, tiara, etc) M&J in my opinion still has the largest selection on these things.</p>
<p>Oh how very exciting for you momofthree. A wedding. Droool…
You do get the most glorious fabrics in NYC garment district, unique one-of-a-kind designer remnants. </p>
<p>I made my own gown, back in the day. It turned out beautiful, even thoough it started out as an act of vengeance against my m-i-l who was trying to take over every aspect of my wedding.</p>
<p>There are inexpensive on-line shops too, like <a href=“http://www.shopshop.com%5B/url%5D”>www.shopshop.com</a> where I saw some very simple elegant gowns…</p>
<p>Slightly O.T…Remember the guy last year who sold his wife’s gown on Ebay by modelling it…yech…he not only sold the gown, but even got offers of marriage.</p>
<p>Has she tried David’s Bridal? There’s a store in Philly as well as one in Springfield, PA (not far from Swarthmore). My neighbor’s D got her dress there. They advertise bridal dresses from $99 and up (probably bait & switch) but they also have a drawing for a free gown if you go on their mailing list at <a href=“http://www.davidsbridal.com/bridalcollection.jsp[/url]”>http://www.davidsbridal.com/bridalcollection.jsp</a></p>
<p>My personal opinion is that a lovely bride in a simple gown can be done without spending big bucks. I would think she could find something in the $500 range anyway.</p>
<p>Went on the verawang website last night* and there are, indeed, many bridesmaid dresses that would be beautiful wedding gowns, under $300. Would require non pure-white, tho. Champagne-ish is the closest color I saw.</p>
<p>*Let’s hear it for vicarious living. Thanks again, momofthree, for giving us the opportunity.</p>
<p>If your D could time it right, she could attend the Filene’s Basement bridal gown sale in Boston. A former colleague got her dress there for $200 and it was absolutely gorgeous. (I made my dress way back when.) I realize that this is kind of tacky, but when my D needed a dress for a dance concert, I went to the local Boomerangs store (proceeds go to AID Action Committee) and got a designer wedding dress (price tag still on it was $400) for $5.50 that I then altered. Perhaps there are consignment shops along the Main Line?</p>
<p>MomofThree, congrats to your daughter! Is your future son-in-law a Swattie? :)</p>
<p>p.s - Sorry don’t know anything about wedding dresses, but if you want advice on sarees, I could ask my mom! :)</p>
<p>Momofthree - Congratulations to daughter and new son-to-be! I don’t think $1500 is too far out of line, particularly if she establishes a budget.
One of my SILs had a small simple wedding as you are describing in a lovely old church, but her largest expense other than food was the dress. I remember her dress very clearly, it was quite simple with elegant lines, but the extra expense bought very heavy satin, fine material, which made the look because of the simplicity. In a small wedding she will truly be the center of attention, and that beautiful dress will knock their socks off.
Contrast my other SIL who, true to her highly gregarious personality, had a “cast of thousands” wedding. Her maids (all 8! of us) had these great dresses made of taffeta lining material sewn back side out. It looked much,much more expensive than it was (less $40/dress, all labor), and we wadded them up and threw them away after the wedding - literally.</p>
<p>MomofThree: At my daughter’s high school graduation all of the girls wear white dresses. (There are about 500 girls who will graduate.) So i have been looking at white dresses for a few months.</p>
<p>We bought her a Watters and Watters dress.
<a href=“http://www.watters.com/catalog.php?page=2[/url]”>http://www.watters.com/catalog.php?page=2</a>
It is very pretty, it is not fancy…it probably would be termed a “destination” wedding dress. They also have bridemaid dresses–in white or ivory. You can do a store search to find a location near you. They have all pics on their web site. (ordered dress beginning of Jan and received it last week.)</p>
<p>We looked at their dresses, and they were between $250 and $2000.</p>
<p>Also do a search for discount bridal on google.</p>
<p>We ordered a Vera Wang bridesmaid gown for another event 4 years ago. It took 4 months to get it. So if you want to go that route…I would do it soon.</p>
<p>As far as Windsor…we have a Windsor store near us, and the quality may be closer to prom, than a wedding. Make sure that you can return it.</p>
<p>I have seen the JCrew strapless dress and it is quite pretty.</p>
<p>Last tip, if you are ordering the dress–get it a little big and have someone near you fit it.</p>
<p>Good Luck.</p>
<p>Jessica McClintock also sells wedding dresses. I can’t remember their prices, but i think they are under $1000.</p>
<p>MOT: going through this all right now with my sister. My little sister (not so little, actually 43 years old) could be a movie of the week:miserable childhood (my parents divorced when she was 1 and it affected her greatly), nearly flunked out of high school due to drinking, drugs and boys but about jr. year decided to clean up her act and decided she wanted to be a juvenile court judge helping delinquents (just like herself). Raised her grades (she’s actually really, really smart) and applied to one college: Univ. of Miami because she hated the cold (we’re from NY). Went there for two years and hated every minute of it. Wanted to go to law school and felt she needed to graduate from a better school. Got a straight 4.0 at UM, transferred to Penn and continued to graduate with a 4.0, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, etc. Went to NYU law school, got great grades again, clerked with great judges, worked in great NYC firms and ditched it all to move back to Florida to do post-conviction death penalty work and burned out by doing it for way too long. Basically, hit rock bottom, moved to Indy to live with me for 6 months, worked as a waitress and slowly pulled herself together - again. Went back to Florida, waitressed, found a judge clerk job which led to her present law firm job. </p>
<p>She never really had a serious boyfriend and the few she had really messed her over. In the past few years, she had gotten her life together, though. Good law job she loves, fought her way out of credit hell and bought a townhome and a new car and rescued dogs from the pound (shades of her death penalty work). Had a great network of friends and a content life - but still no guy. Set up by friends a few years ago with her dream guy: gorgeous,surfer dude (with a great steady job) and several months after they started going out she called to tell me: this is the guy I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Getting married in October and I get to be matron of honor (I bullied my way into that one!!).</p>
<p>Sorry for the long story, but I am so INCREDIBLY happy for my sister. And she’s been keeping me apprised of every step of the wedding planning. She found a floor sample dress for $500 - <a href=“Wedding Dresses & Bridal Gowns | Maggie Sottero”>Wedding Dresses & Bridal Gowns | Maggie Sottero; (that’s her exact dress) and they are trying to save $$ everywhere they can. Should be ~$10,000 overall with ~150 people. </p>
<p>She shopped around for her dress (lives near West Palm Beach) a lot but was easily able to find dresses under $1000. But she’s an older bride paying for everything by herself and so she didn’t get stuck on anything very expensive and was willing to look around. When a friend’s daughter got married several years ago, I remember how she was pretty adamant that she had to have “the” dress, cost be damned. Probably, really comes down to how flexible she is.</p>
<p>Have fun - I know my sister is stressed but happy. I wish I could help her more but, like you, geographic distance makes it tough. Good luck!</p>
<p>And sorry I hijacked your thread to tell my sister’s story.</p>
<p>our whole wedding ( inc rings ) cost $1000, but that was in the *Land before time[i/]!
But if she thinks about it- she may want to save on teh dress and spend on the honeymoon.</p>
<p>Take a look on the ebay website…they have new things coming in all the time…This reminds me of my dress hunt 13 years ago…paid $900.00 at some huge bridal emporium in NJ for the simplest dress ever and got so many compliments on it…good luck to you!</p>
<p>You usually need 12 weeks of lead time to order a dress from Vera Wang. My daughter ordered her dress mid March for Prom in early June and we had to pay a $100 rudh charge. When you go there they have all kinds of swatches and samples, so getting a dress in white, off-white, or Ivory is possible.</p>
<p>I’m with Jmmom, </p>
<p>Let’s hear it for vicarious living. Thanks again, momofthree, for giving us the opportunity. It certainly does help give people something else to do while they are waiting for decisions. Do you think D would mind if we became the CC parents bridal consultants? :)</p>
<p>What a great thread. At this point my 18-year-old d and her friends seem to have done quite a lot of wedding planning, even though there are (happily, given their age) no grooms in sight! This thread is a keeper. </p>
<p>I would have offered all I knew, but sybbie beat me to the punch (go, sybbie!). I will say that although we found d’s very traditional, fairy-tale Alfred Angelo prom dress by googling “discount bridal” and “discount prom,” in the end it was more worth it to buy it locally, because we only paid a tiny bit more and the shop steamed it on the day of, etc. </p>
<p>And don’t forget to check Ebay. There are tons of gorgeous wedding gowns there. Many are brand new, designer names, great prices. </p>
<p>Speaking of sample dresses, that’s what I wore. Gorgeous laces, etc., cost me $50 in 1975! D hopes to wear it at her wedding.</p>
<p>MOT - yes, as Sybbie says, want some cheap cheap cheap bridal consultants? Let’s talk wedding favors next. If your D has any any arty edgy yearnings, I can help there. We had a friend buy bulk catseye sunglasses from Canal Street in NYC and glued glitter on the corners for all the women. Even have photos of federal court justice’s wife wearing them. And flowers, just think of the vicarious thrills we can have! Or wines - the CA contingent could point you towards some obscure vineyards…Of course, I wouldn’t blame you if you kept it all to yourself:) As I said, I am just dying for the day my D goes through this. And fredo, your sister sounds as though she truly deserves her day to be a princess.</p>
<p>Here are a few more ideas: </p>
<p>Vintage shops can have spectacular dresses if she is into that style… I would second the idea of waiting a bit; styles & ideas change over time & if the venue or time of day for the wedding changes the dress may wind up needing to be different. Would it be possible to remake your dress or grandma’s dress? Maybe get a fabulous “designer” party dress in white? Try Saks, etc, in the resort/spring/summer seasons for chic white dresses.</p>
<p>I had my dress made. Saw a few dresses I liked in bridal mags and copied elements of them. It was absolutely gorgeous (pearl raw silk, strapless, & ballerina length) with a sheer, sleeveless “blouse” that went over it and had pearl buttons down the back. Remeber, they see you from the back for 90% of the ceremony!) Vera Wang meets Audrey Hepburn. It was my main effort of the wedding. </p>
<p>Other than the dress, I took a fairly pragmatic approach to my wedding. I delegated. I had my Mom do invitations, “choose whatever looks tasteful & traditional, mom.” Done. I had my cousin’s wife, a florist, do flowers. “Here are five kinds of flowers I like, do whatever you want.” Done. I picked a charming, garden-y restaurant as the venue-- et voila, no need for seperate caterer. Had just one bridesmaid (sister): “pick whatever dress looks great on you, sis.” Done!</p>
<p>The less stress you have the more fun you have. I had a BALL at my wedding. </p>
<p>One funny thing was we served champagne to arriving guests (people loved that and because it was a restayurant and not a house of worship, it fit.) About 20 minutes into the wedding, some poor waiter spilled a whole tray of champagne on ME!! :eek:</p>
<p>My best friend took me upstairs with a blowdrier and dried me off. We were laughing hysterically. Luckily it didn’t show once dry. Nobody could believe I didn’t freak out… but really, my whole idea was to <em>get married</em>, not to “be a bride.” People can lose sight of that. The most important things for a great wedding are all of your friends and family being there, good food, & a happy atmosphere.</p>
<p>jmmom, How about your son marries my D and I will let you plan the whole thing!!</p>
<p>Your daughter should also see if she could check out some sample sales</p>
<p>You might see if there are any consignment shops that carry wedding dresses. There are two in my area. One of the two (Snooty Fox) has multiple locations in the Cincinnati area. Even our local Salvation Army store sometimes carries wedding dresses. A few years ago I saw several matching bridesmaids dresses that had been donated.</p>
<p>It is possible to find things on a budget if you have time to do some searching. I just purchased a beautiful dress for my 24 year old D at David’s Bridal last month. The cost was around $500. She wears a large size, so it’s difficult to find things that will fit her at a consignment store. However, we looked! We felt she needed to be able to try on a dress before purchasing it, so we eliminated E-Bay. To me, $500 is a lot of money. We will be trying to get bridesmaids dresses and mother of the bride dresses on the cheap. With the college expenses for my freshman D, there’s not a lot of money left for a big wedding. We will be trying to do a simple but elegant affair on a tight budget. I know it’s possible. My H and I did it when we married:)</p>