THE dress!

Well, here it is folks, the final dress installment. No pics here, because E can't see them, nor will I describe THE dress in the least. What I will say, though, is that it's gorgeous and fun, and I can't wait to wear it, and even baby Elle (of A&E Wedding Planners, Inc.) gave it a ringing endorsement when she saw it!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you all about how THE dress came to be discovered. I was staying with the 'rents and flipping through a bridal magazine when I came across a line of dresses I'd never seen before. I flipped to the back of the book to see where they sold them and it said they were available at Lucille's Bridal in Orange. So I called Lucille's and made an appointment for that afternoon. My mom and I drove over, somewhat skeptical that this would the place for THE dress because we hadn't planned to go there and didn't know anything about it, and when we arrived, it was a tiny store, so unobtrusive that you might not have noticed it just driving by.

But we went inside, and there we met Theresa, and it was then I knew that at this place I would buy THE dress. Theresa is a little woman, smaller than me in all regards, who probably is in her 60s and from Italy. She is effusive and honest and thoroughly charming, with a thick Italian accent and an ability to run about the store carrying dresses that must weigh more than she does. We bought the very first dress she picked out for me, though not until I'd tried several others and obsessed over the choice for two weeks. (I'm enclosing a picture of one of the competitors, but it's not THE dress.)

On our way out from that first visit, we met the owner of the store, a big burly Italian man who reminded me of may of my relatives. He was very sweet on the inside and kind of like a big teddy bear. We also had wonderful help from Jen, who kept assuring me that alterations could be done and everything would fit well, and I had nothing to worry about. Plus, overall I felt great about buying the dress from a small boutique and not a behemoth like Kleinfeld's or Pronovias. It just seemed like a better, more ethical place to go somehow.

Without doubt, Lucille's had the best customer service and the most knowledgeable staff of any place we went, and Theresa was great about allowing me to come back several times and try THE dress on before I committed! For some reason, unlike other girls, I didn't try THE dress on and just know it was the one. I was very uncertain initially that this was THE dress, though my mom and bridesmaid Dawn were both sure from the moment they saw it on! (Dawn even went so far as to say that she couldn't understand why I'd even try anything else.)

What convinced me? Well, when I went back and thought of all the dresses I'd loved to have on--the one at Bridal Reflections and the Kleinfeld's one--I realized that what I'd loved about each of these thoroughly overpriced dresses was that they had a hoop, which kept layers of fabric away from my legs and made it much easier to move around. So then I thought, "I wonder if they sell hoops anywhere?" Thanks to handy dandy Internet, I discovered they did--so many varieties of hoops to choose from!--and for 35 dollars, yours truly ordered a giant Scarlett O'Hara styled hoop! I went back to Lucille's, tried the hoop on with my thoroughly reasonably priced dress, and voila--it was like my under 1,000 dollar dress had turned into the 10,000 dollar Kleinfeld's dress all for 35 bucks! Talk about a great investment! When I looked at myself in the mirror, knowing that when I took a step I wouldn't be touching layers of crinoline and that my hoop would make an excellent table top (should one be needed), it honestly made me giggle, and I felt like Deborah Kerr in The King and I. I had to laugh--I, who had sworn I would never, ever look like a "meringue" in my wedding dress--had somehow morphed into the greatest meringue of them all. And you know what, I couldn't be happier!



Not THE dress, but a contender from Lucille's!

Kleinfeld's!

Okay, so this blog post is slightly out of order. The truth is that we found The Dress before we went to Kleinfeld's, but because I had to make an appointment months in advance to get in, and they would have charged me 100 dollars if I didn't show up, we figured we ought to go. After all, Julie said it's a "stop on the train to your wedding dress destination!"

So on a cold March day, I went to the famous Kleinfeld's with some very special guests: Julie, baby Elle, Amanda (who works at the church where our ceremony will be), my mom, and Lisa Beth, who drove all the way from Boston just for this! She totally deserves an award for that trek!



(Here's me, Julie, and baby Elle standing outside of Kleinfeld's!)

Now, having never seen "Say Yes to the Dress," I had no idea what Kleinfeld's was all about, so it was great that Lisa Beth was there--she knew who all the bridal consultants were and everything! That made her a great asset in dress shopping--she knew all the right questions to ask and had a great eye for the dresses! She even knew one of the designers, who'd appeared on the show and was having a trunk show that day. The designer's name was Pnina Tourne, and she came to talk with me directly about a dress I had on (as she walked over, Lisa Beth was so excited: "I can't believe you're going to talk to Pnina Tourne!" she said. And I'm going, "Who?"). Now, let me tell you about that dress: like the one at Bridal Reflections, it had a hoop. But the hoop was EMUNGOUS (that enormous and humongous lumped together)! It was so huge I could barely get through the door, and I had to squeeze the hoop to get through the frame! That said, the dress was really fun to have on, and I loved wearing it. The problem: the 10,000 dollar price tag!

Since the dress was, uh, a bit out of my price range, it wasn't The Dress, but we did sneak some pictures so it would be immortalized. Here is the dress and baby Elle's reaction to it. Baby Elle, by the way, was probably the biggest hit at Kleinfeld's, way more memorable than any of the dresses, which just goes to show: it's the people, and not the dress, that make the wedding!

Bridal Reflections and Pronovias

My mom and I took a day trip to NYC to see Elle and Aidan and try on some dresses back during the quest. The trip began with a trip to Bridal Reflections, an upscale boutique downtown where the lowest priced dresses were at the very top of our price range. We saw dresses for 14,000 dollars and veils for over a thousand. Needless to say, we didn't buy any of them! But I did fall in love with this taffeta dress. While not particularly interesting to look at, it was a joy to move around in, and it was the first dress that made me laugh and giggle. I loved how light the material was and how the hoop kept the crinoline off of my legs. But perhaps the best part of our trip to Bridal Reflections was that my friend Deborah made an impromptu trip to join us for lunch and shopping. She actually took the picture below!



(Note the channeling-my-inner-Sarah-Palin hair; the lady helping us with dresses put it like that!)



Later that day, my mom and I went to Pronovias, a store that looked like it had great dresses online. We met my mom's friend Michelle, my Aunt Stephanie, my cousin Caryl, and my MOH Julie at their boutique off of 5th Avenue. We didn't wind up getting a dress there because they didn't make petite sizes and the two dresses I liked didn't seem like they would be alterable. Anyway, here is one of the contenders from Pronovias (the other one, which I don't have a picture of, was an slim A-line dress with a gauze jacket. When I tried it on, my mom's friend Michelle exclaimed, "This looks just like the dress I got married in!" That made me smile). Anyway, This dress and its unphotographed cousin were the front runners until the day when I found THE dress....




Probably the best part of that day dress shopping in NYC was seeing my family, my friends and my mom's all together, laughing and giggling and sharing this special time in my life. After dress shopping at Pronovias, we all went to dinner at La Bonne Soupe, where we had crepes, yummy salads, and fondue for dessert and rehashed all the details of the day, and I think we all went home happy!

Valentine's Day and Our First Easter Brunch

It’s Valentine’s Day in April! Since E and I didn’t get to celebrate on February 14 because I was in Boston and he was in Milwaukee, we had a belated Valentine’s Day yesterday. We started the day by going to one of our favorite restaurants in downtown Boston: UFood. UFood is a healthy fast food restaurant with super yummy baked un-fries! We both ordered new things this time—E got a salmon sandwich and I had the salmon caprese salad. We split the un-fries! Then we walked down the block to my gym, where we went to a vinyasa yoga class and went swimming. Both of us worked on the butterfly—aka, we made giant splashes in the water and hoped we reached the other side of the pool! I also worked on my crawl and breast strokes while E worked on swimming down the lane and back in one breath.

After some chilling in the minty steam room and showering, we headed off to Hynes Convention Center where there was an anime convention E wanted to see. It was quite the sight—tons of teenagers and young adults dressed up in every variety of costume imaginable. Our favorite was a guy dressed in black carrying a cross covered in white over one shoulder while lighting a cigarette! We kept thinking, “All of downtown Boston must be so confused about why all these wildly dressed people are on the T!”

From there we walked to The Melting Pot, a fondue chain restaurant. E and I split the classic swiss cheese fondue, lettuce wraps, and an entrée called The French Quarter. It came with shrimp, chicken, steak, and andouille sausage (which was my fave—E liked the steak). It was also accompanied by broccoli, mushroom caps, and red potatoes that you could cook in the trans-fat free canola oil with herbs. Along with all of this was a slew of flavor combinations—there was a tempura batter and a sesame batter you could dip your meat/veggies in before you put them in the oil (I had this mission to make a tempura broccoli throughout our entire meal. My Aunt Donna used to make them when I was little, and they were my fave. I can’t say these were as good—especially the first one where the oil wasn’t hot enough and all the tempura just slid off—but they brought back happy memories, and by the end, I did manage to make one respectable specimen.) Anyway, there was tempura and sesame and then a bunch of dipping sauces—a curry yogurt, a teriyaki, a Thai chili, a gorgonzola blue cheese, and an herb and cream cheese one. Our waitress recommended stuffing the mushroom with the herb and cream cheese and then dipping it in the tempura. I was too busy perfecting my broccoli, but E tried it and loved it!

Then for dessert we split a small amaretto disarrono dark chocolate fondue that came with strawberries, two kinds of marshmallows (one dipped in graham cracker and one dipped in Oreos), cheesecake, rice krispy treats, bananas, brownie, and pound cake. It was absolutely delicious! We capped off the night with a trip to Trinity Copley Square to ring in Easter! (For my church friends: They did a terrific job with the vigil—they used “Go Down Moses” instead of the reading about the Exodus and said “The Word of the Lord” when it was done. Oh, and theu used Ghanaian drums when they said Easter was here! And they had people in the congregation with bells, so when they rang in Easter, the bell players chimed every few stanzas; it was really cool!) So that was Valentine’s Day. It was pretty special to have our very own holiday. It felt fun and secretive—after all, we were the only people in the world, probably, celebrating St. Valentine on April 3!

But we are one of millions celebrating Easter, and it’s a very special Easter for us because we hosted our first Easter brunch! Our friends Tasi and Kristen came over after church for waffles in our new waffle maker (thanks Koffler family!), rosemary bacon, fruit salad, and Peeps for dessert!

Tasi and E break out the new waffle maker!

The batter for our first set of waffles was a Norwegian recipe I got while visiting a family in Bergen, Norway, while studying abroad (that was the same trip where I first met E). Since waffles are the national treat of Norway, I had several while there. They are cardamom-flavored and usually accompanied by lingonberry preserves, which we made sure to have.


Our first Easter brunch!