Dessy's Next Trick

Dessy 1019

Dessy Dresses are a tricky business-- a lot of times you can find a similar look for a little less elsewhere, and my final verdict on their LBD experiment stands: you have to be careful or you're not really getting a deal! They have a new program called Sample on Loan which boasts one upside for the busy bride on the go; they will send you a sample to try on at home! 

There are a few ways this could be a total rip off, so let's check out the details.

The Premise: You pay Dessy $35 to ship you a sample that may or may not be the proper size so that you can hang on to it for 2 days, try it on, wear it around the house, take it to dance lessons, what have you. 

The Ins and Outs: You get the dress (from the After Six Collection) and a pre-paid adhesive shipping label in the mail, you keep the dress for 48hrs. If you haven't returned it in time you are charged an extra $20/day. Dessy MAY be able to send you more than one dress at a time, for another $35. Your size may also not be available, so they will send you the "closest" size possible-- no word on whether that's one size up or one size down, but I would assume one size up.

The Ups and Downs: If you're planning on a budget, $35 to rent a dress for two days may not be the best investment. If you're not planning on a budget, and you're a busy gal, it might be worth it to you to not have to find your nearest Dessy (which for me is anywhere from roughly 8-20mi, ranging 30-120 minutes in travel time one way) and go in to the store, deal with people, etc. If you're going to be wearing a dress from Dessy's After Six collection and you have it in hand and you'd like to do a bridal shoot before the big day, you could always rent a sample to do the shoot in. Though I'm sure major damages would result in an extra fee, it would be a safe way to do your shoot and not worry about getting dust on the hem.

As with the NewlyMaid program, I would suggest really looking around and checking your budget to see if this is the right program for you. You should also contact the Dessy Customer Service BY PHONE to ask if there are any partial refunds available, and what happens if you rip the hem while seeing if your heels work with the gown. I emphasize BY PHONE because I e-mailed them and got a form response which was copy and paste from the website. No extra information, no effort put in to the response at all.

Filene's Closes Down

OK, Atlanta brides, here's your chance to experience the Running of the Brides without the potential to be trampled! Earlier this month, the AJC Biz Blog reported that Filene's Basement is shutting down operations! So, this is a bit of a cheat for Markdown Monday, but if you're looking for a dress don't count them out. I'm sure that the closer they get to closing (I'll update when they announce a closing date) the better the deals will be!

Filene's Basement in Atlanta is located at Lenox Marketplace:

3535 Peachtree Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30326
(404) 869-4466

Hours

Mon-Sat: 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM
Sunday: 12:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Markdown Monday, The Limited

"While supplies last" over at The Limited, their wedding dress selection is all on sale! It's a small collection, but has a few fantastic choices for those with simple taste!

Strapless Reception Dress - $136.80

Soft Texture Wedding Dress - $238.80

Full Skirt Wedding Dress - $238.80

There is a lot of great variation within these 9 dresses and you could do a lot with them! A little something for everyone.

Markdown Monday

OK, so I was talking to a friend the other day and we agreed that the "worst" expense you love to expense in a wedding is the dress... she argued that David's is full of cheap material and that her natural material dress was way more comfortable than the one she almost bought at David's, and though I have no doubt that she's correct (I only tried on dresses at David's because they had THE DRESS) I also wonder why it really matters... To be perfectly honest, there's nothing to say that as long as you're within your budget you can't have a reception dress to follow up the picturesque one you use for the ceremony and pictures! As much as I adored MY dress, I almost wished I'd had a reception one!

So, here at AEA, we're going to start Markdown Mondays-- I say we, and I mean I. I will look through some of the major retailers for wedding dresses around Atlanta and on the internet and bring you the best deals your wedding dollars can buy and maybe even a few reception dresses to boot! Markdown Mondays sounds cheap and cheesy, but I'm hoping you'll enjoy it!

$200 at David's Bridal

$250 at David's Bridal

$150 at David's Bridal

$100 at David's Bridal

Now, of course, everyone seems to think that you "get what you pay for" when it comes to clothing, and I'm generally among that crowd, however if what you "get" is a dress that looks pretty on you, looks pretty in the pictures, and doesn't fail after 8 hours... I'd say that's about what you want in a wedding dress! 

My clearance David's Dress-- $114 with taxes!

But no really...

($1000 store price)

I'm going to interrupt myself for a very important announcement...

Vera Wang is doing a series for David's Bridal. No lie.

If you want in on this party, get over there now because they're on sale! You could legitimately have a Vera Wang wedding gown for $400. But not that one up there, it's still $1,000.

Ring a Ding King and Queen!

(Telegraph)

Sooo, I wasn't going to blog about the Royal Wedding because many more and far more talented people are doing it, but I'll admit the romance has gotten to me AND I need an easy way out of this evening's post due to exhaustion! I do love Kate Middleton's Grace Kelly throwback gown and thought the pouting bridesmaid as cute as anyone else, but with the grandeur of this wedding, how could your modest affair hope to live up to the new standards?

Princess Grace (Kelly) and Prince Ranier of Monaco

(via fashion-era.com)

We can thank my college friend Taylor for providing tonight's link to Etsy's Royal Wedding List-- wander over and see if you, too, can be taken over by romance!

(And for those of us who are just a little bit geeky, E's Answer Bitch throws a political/historical bone or two our way!)

Ring a Ding Segue-- I mean Ding (Pt. 4)

I wanted this post to be about sashes because if we've learned nothing else from this week, it's that accessorizing is key! My wedding dress would have been totally unremarkable if it weren't for the sash, and I have seen a lot of dresses that needed just that little touch to make it memorable.

So what happens if you don't luck out on a dress with anything but a plain old sash? WELL, you segue on over to Amie Noel Designs on Etsy, that's what! She actually does mostly hair accessories, but her combination pieces are truly nifty...

One minute it's a hairpiece...

The next it's a sash!

Brilliant!! She has a couple of these designs (look for the headband/sash heading), and I'm willing to bet that if you asked nicely enough she could apply a couple of the others to a similar style. ALSO, in case your bouquet needs a sash as well (and what good bouquet doesn't? Let's face it, floral wire isn't gorgeous) she has these adorable and not-too-exorbitantly-priced bouquet ties!

Basically, I'm in love. There's a good chance that I will use sorority functions as an excuse to buy some of this just for myself! And yes, one of the labels IS "shiny" because that's what these are-- shiiiiny!

All Dressed Up

So you read my last post and wanted to know your options if you DO want to be a princess? Never fear, that post is here! Now, I could start talking about the ball gown version of yesterday's Badgley Mishka, but where's the fun in that when designer Alfred Angelo has teamed up with Disney to make REAL princess inspired dresses?! The collage is a little rough, but here you go...

1. Snow White, 2. Jasmine, 3. Belle,

4. Cinderella, 5. Ariel, 6. Tiana

No doubt about it, these dresses are everything a proper Princess Bride dreams about! From tulle and taffeta to sequins and silk to ruffles and rhinestones, Alfred Angelo delivers! Though I'm more of a purist on my Disney designs (Ariel and Jasmine are my least favorite of the above dresses, but two of my favorite princesses) I'm definitely in love with the designs and the feeling they must give when they're on! I'm dying to sneak in to one of the boutiques and try each of them on to review their weight and wear.

The look is fantastic and you're sure to turn heads and get that gasp you always dreamed of, but as a friend and consultant, I couldn't let you pick one of these princess dresses or any other without considering the following:

One of the nit picky things about big dresses is their weight. When watching "Say Yes to the Dress", you can look at the Kleinfeld's employees when they drag some of the ball gowns out and see how much those dresses weigh-- upwards of 30-40lbs! Can you imagine putting on a dress that weighs roughly a quarter to a third of your own weight? My sister in law had such a dress-- it was a third if not more of her body weight and bustled up in the back so she could dance. She was gorgeous and loved her dress until the week after her wedding when her back hurt so badly she had to lay down most days to stretch it out. Now, she's a pretty tiny girl, so I'm not saying this will happen to all of you, but if you have a big dress try it on for a half hour at the salon; dance around in it, practice sitting and standing and bustling (if necessary). The salon won't hold it against you, wherever you are, because they want you to be happy and comfortable in it-- a happy customer is one who will send her friends there after all!

Dressed Down

Last week, I talked a bit about bridesmaids dresses-- I want to do the same thing this week with wedding dresses!

Little girls of my generation grew up with big poofy gowns and silk and taffeta and all those lovely remnants of the 70's and 80's, not too different from the dress up clothes for girls of many generations, and between dress up and Disney movies (two of my favorite things, for the record) we grow up imagining the shoulder-tastic dresses of Ariel, Cinderella, and the real-life icon Diana Princess of Wales. But then we get older and we realize that the large number of us look a little bit silly in those dresses... in a fit of princess-inspired mania, I picked out this little number 

I don't know how well you can see, BUT the dress is eating my underarms. And I couldn't move. Or breathe very well for that matter. The skepticism is clear on my face... I skipped out on this one and opted for a dress in which I could sit, dance, and eat during my special day, and after meeting a large number of brides who were unable to do at least one of those things without at least minor discomfort I have to wonder WHAT we are thinking!

I'm telling you now-- you should look gorgeous on your wedding day, you should wear a dress that makes you feel like queen of the world, but you should also be able to eat because take it from me... two Krispy Kreme doughnuts at 10a are not going to last you through pictures, ceremony, more pictures, packing up, getting to the reception, first dance, toasts, hellos... well, you get the picture. On the other hand, what if you don't want to look like a princess? What if you want to look like you? There are plenty of options; who says you have to wear a full length dress?

Ladies Who Lunch Dress

First up is one from my favorite place, ModCloth. It's light and airy, casual but classic and classy, and with a fascinator and a beautiful bouquet could be the PERFECT dress for a summer wedding! I'm also in love with a few fabulous finds from Nordstroms, like this Sue Wong strapless dress with ostrich feathers 

Or, if you like the feathers and want more flow, check out this Badgley Mishka number from Neiman Marcus:

These are, for the most part, dresses that would be categorized as "reception dresses" which is a topic I'll tackle another time, but I see no reason why they wouldn't be just as at home walking down the aisle at a beach wedding, indie wedding, spring or summer wedding, or wherever you want to wear them!