Wedding Dress Day

Saturday was wedding dress day!

K and two of her bridesmaids and I met mid morning at my house to head out for the day. K and I had been talking earlier in the week and she mentioned how she wanted to make a day of it and have it be something special.

I decided to surprise her and the girls with a planned day full of activities.

I put together some gift packages for them and had them on the counter when the girls came in to the house. Propped up in front of the packages were laminated itineraries of the day that I had created. I made them look like maps, leading us from one event to the next. 

The girls wanted to open their gifts right away. 

I had stopped in at a local home decor shop to find some pretty artificial flowers. Two of my favorite staff were working that day and they helped me put together some beautiful peony stems into mixed bouquets for the girls. I wrapped the stems in white velvet and they looked perfect for a bridal celebration.

The girls loved them. They thought the peonies were real.

I used all kinds of ways to keep these packages together. 

Tape, knots, bows, tulle, twine, ribbon.

It was fun watching them open the packages. Inside was a cream colored cereal bowl from Target's Magnolia line that I had filled with lots of goodies - small candies, Godiva chocolate caramel bars, hand cream, trinket dishes, a wedding dress bookmark. And of course, the peony bouquets.

A few small things to make the day extra special.

After they opened their gifts we headed out to the bridal salon. There was a fair going on in the area and I was sure we would hit traffic so we left plenty of time to get to the salon. It took about forty five minutes to get there. We were thirty minutes early for our appointment so I suggested we stop for a coffee.

We pulled into a coffee shop and there was a long line in front of us. This particular chain usually moves people right along so we figured we would have plenty of time. We were only seven minutes away from the salon.

Twenty minutes later we were still in line. Oy vey. The cashier was very slow and they seemed to be severely understaffed. The cashier was making all the hot drinks. And on Saturday morning, everyone in line was ordering multiple drinks. I was starting to fret a little bit. I didn't want to be late for our appointment.

We decided to have our order ready to go and to keep it simple. No deviations from the menu and we all tried to order the same thing. I felt like I was standing in the soup Nazi line from "Seinfeld". We got our drinks and donuts and flew out of the shop.

We made it to the salon with one minute to spare.

The area the shop was in was a little sketchy. 

Like war zone sketchy. 

We were in a small city, definitely not in the affluent part. Broken down cars, antennas on the roofs, people jaywalking all over the place. It was a little scary. The driveway to the mill looked like a construction zone, with fencing blocking off most of the sandy, dirt covered driveway. We parked in the first parking lot we found once we spotted the bridal salon sign.

We climbed up the stairs to the first entrance, which had some sort of security alarm company sign on the door, and it was locked. We turned around, not sure where to go next. Two guys in a delivery vehicle yelled out to us to go around the corner and we'd find the salon there.

Okay. We'll listen to two strange men in a sketchy part of town tell us where to go. And we did.

We found the salon right around the corner, just where they said it would be.

What a beautiful shop it was. Located in a renovated old mill sitting along the side of a river, it was all floor to ceiling windows, red brick, metal beams, and shiny, rich wood floors. The dresses looked stunning in this backdrop.

A bridal consultant approached us and immediately took K under her wing. She started talking to her about what style she was looking for, what material, our price range. All the important details were talked out before she started pulling dresses.

K went off to the dressing room and the rest of us girls milled around the shop, looking at all the dresses and veils and accessories.

K kept coming out, showing us each dress and asking for opinions. 

Honestly, she looked beautiful in all of them. But there was one that was absolutely gorgeous. It wasn't the style she thought she wanted or the fabric she thought she would like.  It looked stunning on her. The bridal consultant did a wonderful job helping find her the perfect dress.

I can't show any pictures of it. 

I'm sworn to secrecy until the big day. But I will say that she looks very much like Grace Kelly, elegant and simple and I keep looking at pictures of her in it. I can't believe that my baby is getting married. She was three years old the last time I blinked. How did it go by so fast?

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K brought her bouquet with her to use a prop when she was trying on dresses. It worked out beautifully.

Just a cute photo I thought of as we were walking out, K peeking through the window at a wedding dress.

I love the brick and metal and wood of the mill.

After we placed the order for the dress, we went to a country store about forty five minutes away and bought some lunch food and home made rosemary olive oil bread and home made smoked cheddar cheese.  There was a winery in the area so we decided to have lunch there. We took our food with us and decided to buy a bottle of wine to go with our lunch. 

We sat out on the porch of the winery, overlooking the vineyards and some paddocks with horses milling around. It was such a nice day, lots of sun and blue skies and warmth. We just sat and ate and talked and sipped wine.

We ended up getting a second bottle and enjoyed the afternoon together, chatting away.

After the winery, we had one more stop to make - a local orchard down the road a little bit. We bought a bag of apples, a home made apple cranberry pie and some chocolate chip cookies.

We sat outside at the orchard and ate our cookies and chatted some more about wedding plans and showers and honeymoons and all those other wedding things that women talk about. The day wound down and it was finally time to head home. The girls thanked me for making it special, and K was very appreciative of the planned events. She kept telling me how much she enjoyed it. 

My heart was full.

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It was a practically perfect day, as Mary Poppins would say.