Persnickety Penny: WW: Dress Shopping

If all goes as planned on the 30th I'll be ordering my wedding dress. I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not but Julibean and I will be going to Kleinfeld's. At first it started as a joke, that we should go just to get the experience and whatnot but then something incredible happened...

Kleinfeld's started carrying Stephanie James Couture!

I have been in love with Stephanie James' dresses for about two years now. I knew that when the time came I really really really wanted one of her dresses but I thought A-who the hell are you kidding, you can't afford couture anything, and B-the closest stockist is Pittsburgh and you hate going there.

So I started looking for tea length dresses that were closer to my price range of $500 and only found one or two that I was okay with. I didn't really want to settle, but I figured it was bound to happen.

Last month Julibean and I took our mother to David's and I tried on the two tea length dresses they had that I kind of liked. Mom wasn't really happy with the way they looked on me...I thought they were okay and was really just content that I was fitting into one size smaller dresses from the last time I had tried them on.

Julianne found one or two that looked really good on her but because we're in the plus size range it's hard to find a dress to try on that is cut correctly. I carry most of my weight around my ribcage (hello ta tas!) and Julibean carries most of her weight in her tummy. We're very differently shaped and we're both looking for different styles so we thought we'd go to a HUGE place to try different things on.

When I read on Stephanie James' blog that Kleinfeld Bridal was going to start carrying her line I literally did a happy dance and immediately told Julibean how we needed to book appointments yesterday.

When I told my friends we had booked an appointment at Kleinfeld's everyone and their mother wanted to come! And every other person shouted, "If you got on TV you'd be my hero!" If you're asking yes, Julibean submitted us to SYTTD, and no I don't think they'll pick us since we're not very dramatic. However, there is a new version called Big Bliss that they might just grab us for, I mean two sisters shopping at once for their weddings? You'd think they'd eat that shit up!

Back to my point. Maybe two or three months ago one of the girls on a forum I frequent sent me a message since she noticed I was a fan of Stephanie James on facebook. We got to chatting and it turns out that she had just ordered the dress I've been drooling over for the past two years. In fact she even told me what the price range was for the dress and I realized, yeah, I could do that. Long story short, as long as the dress looks killer on me and it's in the price range it should be I'm pretty much gonna order it right then and there.

Now going into Kleinfeld's I actually know exactly what the dress would cost if I ordered it directly from Stephanie James herself. You have to live more than 50 miles away from a stockist to order directly from her store in California. Technically when I move to Virginia I'll be plenty far away from her closest stockist. So if Kleinfeld's tries to up-price this dress I'll have to say no and order it directly from California. But at least I'll get to have tried on the three or four dresses of hers that I adore and be able to feel comfortable about making my choice.

Now here are some images of dresses of hers that I love and can't wait to try on!!!