<p>^^ Agree! So that’s 3 high-profile dresses with sleeves and collars. Dare we hope this is the beginning of the end of the hooker-style wedding dress?!</p>
<p>We do have to admit it is a good message that Big Bliss has, given the rather high number of well-endowed brides these days.
I am so happy that the show includes them.
But it might have been a healthier message just to mix them in the bigger with the others, so the regular show covered brides of all sizes.</p>
<p>Married in 1982 in what was probably the only wedding gown in existence that was not covered in ruffles. (It sure seemed like that the year following Princess Diana’s wedding!) It cost $300, including alterations, which seemed expensive to me.</p>
<p>One thing that I don’t like about the show is that it’s made spending $2,000, $5,000, even $10,000 seem like nothing out of the ordinary. Don’t these couples want to have money for a down payment for a house someday???</p>
<p>“We do have to admit it is a good message that Big Bliss has, given the rather high number of well-endowed brides these days.”</p>
<p>I liked the message of that show that every woman deserves to feel beautiful and fabulous no matter what size she is!</p>
<p>Yikes, I just had this thought. These dresses are bought months before the actual wedding day and sent to be altered. With many brides trying to step up their exercise in the months preceding their wedding to look better for their big day, what would that mean for the dress’ fit?</p>
<p>Not a lot, BB. Most of these girls <em>want</em> to lose weight but when they come in for their fittings, they really haven’t lost anything – or, as in one memorable case, she’d gotten pregnant. I can recall only once having seen a story in which the girl had lost a lot of weight (more than about 5 lbs) between the selection appointment and the fitting. Usually they say ‘I didn’t lose as much as I wanted…’</p>
<p>And, of course, there was this one girl who was a twig at the selection and even skinnier at the appt (bone-showing thin) but she hit all the markers for anorexia…including looking in the mirror and seeing fat everywhere. </p>
<p>But even if they had a plus sized girl at the selection who came in as a size 8 for the fitting, the alterations dept can handle it! They are the true stars of Kleinfelds.</p>
<p>Soooooo many brides wear strapless…yucch. So many strapless styles are so tasteless.</p>
<p>I LOVED Ivanka’s dress too. Chelsea Clinton’s dress was ok…not thrilled. I know I was married in the dark ages, but I don’t remember the alterations being extra $$, they must have been, though!</p>
<p>Pnina Tornei’s dresses—another yucch. I agree with whoever said to take that money and use it on a downpayment for a house! I have two boys, but I will encourage them to have small, inexpensive weddings…hopefully the girls they choose will be on the same page…</p>
<p>Oh yeah, let’s get thru h.s. & college first! :)</p>
<p>My daughter has always wanted a small wedding and has always wanted a beach wedding. She does not like big crowds and we have a very small family. Her fiancee has a very large family and there seems to be some pressure to change her plans. I really hope she sticks with what she wants. It makes me sad to think of her having a wedding that is not what she has ever wanted in order to fit in with other people’s desires.</p>
<p>I totally get what you are saying, swimcatsmom. However, who in the potential groom’s “large family” would you exclude from the wedding? It’s not an easy answer, for sure. </p>
<p>I am speaking from the point of view of being the mother of two grooms (my d is still single). It’s really an interesting position one finds oneself in: your beloved child is also getting married and you want to be there for him. But the Bride and her family (if they are paying for the wedding) traditionally do have the primary say in things. I am sure your d’s fiance’s family are not really trying to “pressure” her…they probably just want to be included. Maybe they can host a separate reception for the bride and groom or something??</p>
<p>Best to you in combining your two families…</p>
<p>^^^Well said.</p>
<p>Hubby and I were older and had lived together for 5 years before getting married, we paid for the wedding so we did as we liked. We had a small ceremony and dinner with just 50 people. I have a large, close knit family, my husband does not but his parents had close friends so we gave each family 2 tables of ten and we had one table of ten and they could invite who they wished as long as it fit at their tables. My side was filled with relatives, my in-laws had one table of friends and one of family, it worked out fine. Very informal casual relaxed more traditional wedding and dinner.</p>
<p>After we had a big party of about 100 for just our friends and younger relatives that had a loud band, drinking, and dancing but none of the “formal” wedding entrapments. It was great.</p>
<p>My dress was very 1920’s deco which was the design of the venue also and a favorite era of ours but it did have the shoulders covered which is required in a Jewish wedding.</p>
<p>^^^amtc:</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s probably why I like Ivanka’s dress so much. She actually converted to Judaism to marry her H and her dress was a stunner. Chelsea also married someone Jewish, but did not convert and chose a strapless dress…Maybe because I am Jewish myself that I just do not like strapless dresses at all!</p>
<p>swimcatsmom:</p>
<p>Hope your D picks the type of wedding SHE wants! 
However I’m sure they’ll be plenty of compromises along the way…</p>
<p>What a great thread-my family knows when I am watching SYTTD that I am in the zone. I loved the episode that had the Irish/Scottish woman coming back to try oh her custom Pinina dress only to be surprised that it was too revealing on the bottom. Agree with tons of other posters that the Pinina dresses are OVER The TOP. I think I have seen several I would not mind my daughter wearing IF the price were not so high. I loved Ivanka Trumps wedding gown and thought the bridal market the US would have been influenced by it’s design but have seen no sign of that. Now I think things will change with Kate Middleton’s gown,which I thought was elegant. The whole obsession with strapless gowns has not been very flattering to the majority of brides I have seen.</p>
<p>The strapless gown flatters so few brides, I have never understood why the style became so popular. The Pinina dresses don’t suit my taste, they end to be so revealing. I just can’t imagine wearing those styles in a church or other religious sanctuary.</p>
<p>^^ Or in front of the new in-laws. Talk about TMI! :eek:</p>
<p>My name is jmmom and I am a SYTTD-aholic.</p>
<p>Can’t believe I have taken this long to click on this thread. I remember the show BEFORE Randy… the consultants had to adjust to his presence and there was some resistance. Gone gone gone now!</p>
<p>And, like sybbie, this is the one show I can watch in reruns and still enjoy, no matter how many times I’ve seen the episode.</p>
<p>I ruefully look back on my bridal gown experience, now that I see it from the consultants viewpoint. I picked out my dress style from looking at magazines (this was eons ago) with, apparently, no clue what would work for my body type (5’0; 110 lbs). I picked an unstructured drapey very slim dress that would have been perfect on someone 5’10". My friend, who was a skilled seamstress, was making it for me. Luckily, she was smart and although we had already shopped for the fabric, she made up a muslin version first. When I came to her place for the fitting, I had it on for a nano-second when we realized it was totally wrong for me. So… we headed to Filene’s or Jordan Marsh bridal salon for me to try on dresses. I found one I loved (probably the second one I tried on) and my friend took careful mental notes so she could replicate it. We shopped for different material and she made me a beautiful dress. I think it cost $300 between material and my paying her. But… poor consultant. At least I think I only took about 1/2 hour -1 hour of her time.</p>
<p>If she got married on the beach it would be a destination wedding as we are very landlocked. So she was thinking literally just immediate family - parents/sibs/grandparents. I am hoping maybe his family will embrace the idea. Future MIL, who she gets on very well with, was floating the idea maybe they could rent a condo for the family to stay in. And a reception for all later would be a good idea. His family is considerable more affluent than ours as well (well they are affluent and we are not at all), so, well, you know - complicated because we simply can not finance a huge wedding. (and I would much rather help with moving expenses and some of her student loans than an expensive wedding - that is just not something that is a priority to us or, more importantly, to her)</p>
<p>I’m leaving it up to the Bride and Groom. Sounds like a busy year for them - graduating college (I hope), getting married, honeymoon, moving to wherever they end up going to do whatever they end up doing (job? Grad school?). The logistics sound complicated. I don’t even want to think about it. Just typing this is stressing me out!</p>
<p>I just discovered this show! The funny thing is, I’m the last person I would have thought would be interested in a program about picking out wedding gowns. Yet there is something compelling about it!</p>
<p>I didn’t see whole episodes on Hulu, but if you’re a Netflix subscriber, most of them are available on instant play! You know what I’ll be doing tonight! ;)</p>
<p>just a few cents: (toward the cost of the wedding) weddings cost a great deal for every family, be they poor or rich. i have seen such hysteria in several weddings lately. one wedding (it’s MY day kind of brat) started sending her future mil bills for what she wanted. everything blew up…and the families aren’t speaking. one rabbi refused to marry them due to all the discord. one of my friends, from a huge family, had a child marrying into a small much less wealthy family. both sets of parents spoke to each other. the wedding went off…beautifully…with 250 guests paid for by the groom’s parents. no…it wasn’t announced who paid for it. no one cared, least of all the groom’s parents because their immediate family is 88 people. they know that they are budget crushers.</p>
<p>don’t assume…talk…compromise…and if someone starts talking tiaras, princesses, and perfection…run.</p>
<p>A colleague’s son is engaged. The couple wanted to do it Big Time. They picked the venue, the food, the drinks (had to be special drinks), and were all set to sign the contract – until they did the math and realized that even though $151 per person (for food and drinks alone) didn’t sound so bad, by the time they multiplied it by the 200 guests, added in the dress, the flowers, the music, the videographer, and so forth, and so on – they’ve put all their plans on hold. </p>
<p>I told my colleague she should offer them $50,000 to elope.</p>