Shopping for Wedding Dresses, Part IIB- The Next Day

I was excited about going to Kleinfeld…just for the experience and I was looking forward to the champagne.  Of course I wasn’t looking forward to driving into the city and navigating all the traffic restrictions to get to the right block where the store was on.  And I wasn’t looking forward to paying a fortune to park my car.  We got there with five minutes to spare.  My cousin, Janie, who’s a jewelry designer and has her office nearby, met us there.  It was heartwarming to have Janie there because we are a month apart in age and we grew up together.  We never even imagined sitting side by side as my daughter would try on bridal gowns one day.  And Janie is an artist, so it would be good to have her opinion.  As we walked in, they have a sign warning you that they can be filming you for the show, “Say Yes to the Dress”.  Our sales associate, Keisha, greeted us.  Well, if Felice the Wheezer was crazy and Mary Lou was warm and fuzzy, Keisha was just plain fun and funny.  I wouldn’t buy her a Hallmark card- I would want to go out with her for drinks to a club and dance- because when Keisha found you a dress you liked, she would start leading you around in a little dance.  She also told us that most of her brides met their fiancés on the internet dating sites and that J-Date was the most popular. She was quite informative and entertaining.  As a matter of fact, she’s one of the stars on “Say Yes to the Dress”. 

 

Kleinfeld is quite an experience.  They let the guests of the bride into the dressing rooms, which are very fancy.  However, the price tags in Kleinfeld are much higher than anywhere else, even with a Trunk Show. And they don’t give you champagne anymore.  Apparently, there was a lawsuit insinuating that customers were “under the influence” when they were “coerced” into buying dresses.  Lindsay began trying on the dresses, too expensive and not as nice as the dress she picked the day before. However, Keisha was determined and found a dress, which was more within our price range and a little bit different.  And, then, it happened. Again.  Lindsay’s eyes lit up and she started nodding.  And Keisha was dancing all around the room.  Even Janie loved it.  We went to the main room to walk around and look in the mirrors.  Keisha brought out her manager who offered us a discount.  They introduced Randy, from “Say Yes to the Dress” to Lindsay and offered to put her on the show.  It was very exciting. 

“But what about the dress from yesterday?” I whispered to Lindsay. 

“I don’t know; I’m confused.  I’m saying “YES” to this dress.  What should I do?” she said.

That’s why I was glad we had a committee.  We’ll decide. I quickly took a picture of Lindsay in the dress, even though you weren’t allowed.  It was going to be a long day.  I had to drive all the way to Woodmere to pick up my mom; then back to Massapequa.  We had time to spare, so we went to a wedding expo in Melville, which I will devote another blog entry to, because that’s a story in itself.  At 7pm, the committee gathered at the store in Massapequa.  Lindsay told Mary Lou that she found another dress she loved at Kleinfeld and was very confused.  Of course, Mary Lou was very understanding.  Then, she went to try on the first dress again, as the committee waited with bated breaths.  We all sighed with relief and awe as Lindsay came out in THE DRESS, smiling.  “You look beautiful,” Marisa exclaimed.  I showed Lindsay’s mother-in-law the picture of the other dress.  “Oh no, that’s too ongepatshket!!” (That’s a Yiddish word for overly done or too much.)  The committee agreed.  This was THE DRESS.  The RIGHT DRESS.

Maybe I will send Keisha a Hallmark card, after all….a funny one. 

Shopping for Wedding Dresses, Part IIA ….. Or, We Found THE DRESS and Then We Found THE DRESS

We were still recovering from “Felice the Wheezer” and we still hadn’t found THE DRESS.  People told me, “You’ll just know.  She’ll put it on; she will glow."  

And so I took two days off from work to search for THE DRESS.  The first place Lindsay made the appointment was in a fancy bridal store in Massapequa.  We had an appointment at 10:15am.  This time we had my younger daughter, Kim, with us.  We couldn’t be late because Lindsay reserved the appointment with her credit card and she’ll be charged $50 if she doesn’t cancel within 24 hours.  The shop takes up a whole block and is divided into mother of the bride, bridesmaid and brides sections.  Of course we walked into the wrong door, first, then were directed to the bridal boutique.  This time the window looked like one you would buy your gown in.  A lovely woman was at the desk.  Her name was Mary Lou; I love that name.  While Felice the Wheezer was frustrating and just plain ridiculous, Mary Lou, well, you just wanted to go buy a Hallmark card for Mary Lou.  She asked Lindsay all about Scott and how they met and where they’re getting married. There were comfy couches and benches for me and Kim to sit on.  Mary Lou took Lindsay to the walls of closets to show her the gowns.  They weren’t wrapped in plastic and each one was more beautiful than the next.  This is where we were introduced to the concept of Trunk Shows.  Trunk Shows are when the designers send their gowns ahead of time to preview it.  Trunk Shows are good because you can get a bargain because the gowns are marked down about $500 from the price they will sell at.  I like bargains, especially when you can spend thousands on a wedding dress.  There was a Trunk Show at this store.  The rack was long with many dresses and many bargains.  I started to look through the rack and Lindsay liked many of the dresses that were there.  We also found some dresses in the closets.  Mary Lou took Lindsay into the dressing room while Kim and I waited on a fancy bench for Lindsay to come out in one white dress after another.  This time they had clips that adjusted the dress so we could see how it would fit in the right size.  There was one dress that we thought was the one and of course all others were compared to it and didn’t measure up.  And then it happened.  Mary Lou found another dress on the Trunk Show rack, one we didn’t notice, and Lindsay came out with her eyes as bright as the time when she was in the nursery when she was first born.  She looked at us and just nodded her head up and down as she stood in front of the mirror.  Mary Lou was ecstatic and she turned to me and said, “It spins really well, too.”  Lindsay had told her about the blog so she knew all about Lindsay and her spinning skirts when she was little.  I was starting to imagine filling in the personal note that I would write to Mary Lou inside the Hallmark card we would send her.  And then it happened.  I started to tear….just like a few people had warned would happen.  Sigh.  We looked at the price….sigh again, with relief,  and what was that?- another 10 percents off!   We were ecstatic.  But we had an appointment at Kleinfeld the next day.  And we could not cancel it because they had the same policy of charging your credit card $50.  So we put the dress on hold and said we would just go to Kleinfeld for the experience and be back the next night with the “Bridal Dress Committee”. Yes.  We formed a committee.  The committee members were me, Kim, Nanny Sylvia (my mom), Lindsay’s future mother-in-law and sister-in-law and last but not least, future niece- 3 year old Marisa, the flower girl.  That’s the committee.  The committee members were called and we set a time- 7pm the next night....

...to be continued. 

 

Will Everything Go Right in the Right Place?

The first thing, usually, people ask when you announce that your child is engaged is- “When are they getting married?”  The second thing is- “Where?”  These are loaded questions when bearing in mind the mega-importance of this day and all the details and questions that have to be considered. 

Should we have it on an evening, early evening, afternoon?

Should it be on a Saturday, Sunday, a holiday weekend?

How many people are we inviting? How many will come?

What about hotel accommodations for out-of-towners?

Will the hall we choose fit our guests comfortably?

What food should we pick to serve?

Can we have the ceremony outdoors and if the weather isn’t nice,

will the indoor ceremony be just as pretty?

The list goes on and on and on and on.  One thing is sure, a hundred things can go right, but if one thing goes wrong and someone isn’t happy, they will talk about it for years and years and years.  For example, I remember a time one of my cousins got married and they must have had a problem fitting all their guests in the ballroom. My Grandma Fanny, parents, aunts and uncles were sitting at their table when Grandma remarked in her European accent, “It’s a lovely vedding, but vhy did they put us in the other room?”  My cousin is not even married to this woman anymore and Grandma Fanny is dead 37 years, but everyone still remembers what she said and how annoyed they all were with the seating arrangements.

We certainly do not want to have the wedding that people still talk about negatively for years to come.  Even though Lindsay and Scott love the place, we want their guests to feel the same way.   So, when we made our final decision, signed on the dotted line and gave our deposit, we decided to take the authority, my mom, also known as Nanny, to see what she thinks.  Nanny is not only a mother and grandma but she’s both my and my daughters’ best friend.  And, naturally, you need your best friend to give her “seal of approval”.  On Sunday morning, I drove out to the assisted living where my mother resides to pick her up and take her to the place we chose.  Luckily, it was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for imagining what the day should look like and what we are praying it will look like.  They were having a party there with 230 guests- it was for a first birthday- I could only imagine where this little girl’s wedding is going to be if her first birthday is here.  This would give us the opportunity to see how comfortable the number of our guests would fit.  We did the tasting already; both sets of parents and Lindsay and Scott sat in the banquet manager, Vicky’s office last week while she brought out cocktails and trays of food.  Everything was delicious but we were still worried about people bumping elbows while they were eating their food.  As beautiful as the place is, it can only handle about 230 people. 

Well, if we adored Vicky before, she became the "messiah" when I brought my mother in.  She took one look at my mom and remarked, cheerfully, “Oh, so you brought out the big guns.”  Mom warmed up to her immediately and told her about the assisted living she resides in and how she does a comedy act ever other Monday and about her “mean” Charlie Chaplin walk.   “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, “ Vicky laughed. 

Then I took mom to show her the place and she absolutely fell in love.  “It’s not like a hall, it’s like someone’s home. I could definitely picture the wedding here, “ she said.  She also thought it would be big enough and nobody would complain about their seat.  She is a little psychic; so I hope this is confirmed.  When we took her outside, Lindsay showed her where the outdoor ceremony would be and said “Nanny, practice your walk down the aisle.”  And so, Nanny did her Charlie Chaplin impersonation walk down the pretty cobblestone path to the gazebo.”  We all laughed and cried. 

Many people are telling me to enjoy the planning process because it’s just as important to remember as the actual wedding day.  This day with my mom will always be a wonderful memory to hold on to.  Everything felt so right.   

The Right Place

I always knew where my wedding was going to be.  I was a counselor at a day camp and somehow we ended up at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, New York.  It was elaborate and very posh.  I came home and told my mother I found the place for my wedding.  Mind you, I wasn’t even dating anyone seriously at the time.  Those details are insignificant in the imagination of any girl, though.  Girls always picture themselves in the dress, walking down the long aisle while everyone is murmuring their “oooohhh, how beautiful she is”, then gliding on the ballroom floor with the man who is the most wonderful, handsome, devoted, adoring husband ever.  Who he is, usually, doesn’t have to be determined right away when any girl is dreaming about herself as a bride.  We just know he’s out there, somewhere, waiting to sweep us off our feet. 

My wedding was at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center on June 24, 1978, just as I had planned, with its spiral staircase leading up to the bridal suite, marble floors, and sparkling chandeliers.  Fancy, fancy, fancy.  I didn’t care so much about the wedding dress but I did want to be surrounded by elegance. 

Lindsay and Scott have very different taste.  They like homey, Victorian, cozy places.  They see a glittering chandelier and shiny marble floors and they turn to each other and just shake their heads.  The only fancy thing Lindsay requires is that they each be served a lobster dinner, in which the lobster is cracked for them, and all they have to do is fork it into their mouths, while their guests just eat the usual beef filet, chicken, or salmon.  This is probably my fault, since my husband and I once ordered in a lobster dinner for our seventh wedding anniversary.  Lindsay was three at the time and woke up, probably from hearing us cracking the lobster.  She was very curious to know what it tasted like, so we gave her a piece.  She was hooked from that time on.  Lobster is her favorite food and is necessary for her very special day.  The one other thing Lindsay requires is pretty chairs- very important.  The minute she sees the wrong kind of chairs, she says, “Nope, don’t like the chairs”, and we move on.

We started to look for the venue before Lindsay got her ring, because she was so anxious to get things started.  Remember, this was the girl who was born three weeks early.  Looking at halls gets to be very routine after a while.  They show you the room for the cocktail hour, the ballroom, the bridal suite, where you can have the ceremony, the bathrooms, the bar, etc., etc.  Everything’s the same and everything’s different.  We went to one place where the ceremony would be overlooking the water; it’s just that the other side was overlooking the parking lot.  Another place, where the ceremony was overlooking the water, you had to cross a busy street to get there.  They actually stop the traffic to get your guests across- like ducks crossing the road!  And you meet all kinds of banquet managers- ones who sound like robots, ones who are just boring, ones who are just plain bored, ones who insist that they have the best deal ever and talk and talk and talk.  The relationship you develop with the banquet manager really helps you decide if you are going to book the place or not.  We found who we feel is the best banquet manager, ever- Vicky.  She’s funny, she’s honest, she’s real and she nicknames all her couples.  Lindsay and Scott are, of course, the “Lobster Couple”.   The most important thing about this place is that I know Lindsay pictured herself being the bride there- just like I pictured myself being the bride at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center.  The only difference is that she had the groom right there to imagine it with her.  Done.

Flashbacks

I went to a little party last Sunday.  Friends I haven’t been in touch with for over 20 years invited us over for a get-together, in upstate New York. I spoke to my best friend, who had also been friends with this person the morning of and she told me who was going to be there.  She mentioned a guy, Keith, whom she said I wouldn’t know.  When we finally got to the house after driving through torrential downpours of rain and we said our hellos and introductions, one lady looked very, very familiar.  She happened to be Keith’s wife; as a matter of fact, even Keith looked familiar.  So, we went through our “how do I know you” list of all the places we lived, worked, etc., etc.   We finally nailed it to our daughters going to the same elementary school and then when I told her Lindsay’s full name, she started yelling, “Lindsay, that little squirt, Lindsay is your daughter?!!!” as she placed her hand about two feet from the floor to emphasize the “little squirt” part.  Then, she started reminiscing about the sleepover party that her daughter had and how Lindsay was so upset about her grandma dying that her daddy had to come pick her up, only to find out later that her grandma had died over two years ago.  I corrected her and told her that it was my grandma who had died and it was seventeen years before that time.  I found it so typical that someone would remember Lindsay from 20 years ago.  Maybe it was all the “center of attention” tricks she would pull or just her petite size that made her unforgettable.   Another coincidence was when this woman told me that her daughter was getting married too.  This wedding thing, it’s spreading like the Swine Flu.  So, of course we had to discuss and compare the usual- the wedding dress, the hall, the flowers, the bridesmaid dresses, the expense, the whole wedding planning progression.  If an alien would’ve landed on earth that very moment, he would have seen two women, speaking very, very fast, in very high voices, oohing and ahhing trying to give and get as much information as possible. 

I called Lindsay while I was at the party.  “You’ll never guess who’s here,” I told her.  “Oh my g-d!” she replied, “I could just picture her when I close my eyes.”  I told her that she was getting married, also, in April.  During the week, Lindsay “friended” her on facebook.  They had many friends in common- girls who went to Pre-Kindergarten through first grade with them.  And they’re all engaged.  I guess this is the time, when they reach that stage of their lives.  Later on that week, Lindsay received a thank you card from another girl in that group she reunited with recently and who's wedding she had attended in March.  I looked at the beautiful bride in the photo, a young woman now, and I had a flashback of her as the little four-year-old Lindsay was friends with.  It’s so mind boggling how being a parent makes that time rush by like flipping pages quickly in a book. 

And then I had a memory I hadn’t thought of in years….driving Lindsay to her first day in elementary school.  The school aides would be there every morning to take each child out of their car as we would drive up.  When it was Lindsay’s turn, I remember, vividly, how she walked holding the aide’s hand to those enormous school doors in her purple plaid pleated skirt with matching vest and white shirt.  I still feel that pang in my heart to my stomach, as those doors opened and Lindsay entered and was quickly out of sight.  It felt like minutes ago when I held her in my arms in the hospital.  And there she was inside that huge building, without me to be with her for a whole day.  And there I was, sobbing like a child, myself. 

And here I am now, thinking how will I walk her down that long aisle without weeping and ruining my makeup that I will pay a small fortune to have someone put on me that day?