sunday

Last night was the perfect Portland night. Fingers are crossed for a series of nights like last night for Ben and Dana next week. Keith was working this new catering job and had a gig at Mt. Hood. Lucky him! I bet it was so gorgeous. I worked until 6 and then decided to go to the gym. I was so on the fence about it and I really didn't want to go, but I got dressed and went anyway. For 5 minutes. Then I wondered what I was doing inside on an elliptical machine when it was so beautiful outside? I left the gym and went for a walk. That didn't last long either because I saw a wedding party taking photos in Tanner Springs Park and I had to park it on a bench and check out what was going on.

The bride looked like a cake topper and she looked perfect and lovely. Her bridesmaids were wearing really classy light yellow dresses and they were all carrying yellow flowers. The guys were all wearing light gray suits. It was a perfect looking summer wedding. While I was able to appreciate the cake topper dress, I still know that I made the right choice with my more simple and more understated dress. First of all, I didn't have the money to afford myself a lot of options when it came to my dress. I had to decide what was more important to me- a high quality, more simple dress, or a big frilly cupcake dress from a chain. Easy peasy. I choose quality. (How did this turn into a blog about my wedding dress?!) So anyway, I don't know who reads my blog. I know my mom, Julia, Shannon, I see that Monique and Emily are now followers, Dana, maybe Ina? Cora, are you still out there? All of these people already know about my dress and probably heard more than they needed/wanted to hear about my dress. But in case any creepers from my facebook page read this and care to know the deets on my dress, here they are: I got it at a boutique on NW23rd. Thanks to Miss Melanie, who used to be a coworker of mine and has since moved back to the V-A, I discovered this cute little shop called Lena Medoyeff. When Keith and I were first engaged and keeping the news to ourselves, she said, "If I ever get married again I know where I'm getting my dress!" And she told me about this place, which she didn't know the name of, on NW23rd. I assumed I couldn't afford it, but I wanted to find it anyway. One Saturday, while working with Ina, I took a Fat Straw run. To my surprise, there was a little dress boutique on the way and it happened to be the one Melanie was talking about. I popped in just to check it out for a minute. I saw a dress. It was 'the' dress. They asked if I wanted to try it on. I couldn't believe it, because I was dressed down and didn't even have a ring on my finger at this point. So I quickly tried it on and of course fell in love with it. It was silk and it was perfect. The price was $752 and it needed a sash that was $163. On top of that, you needed some special panties and boobie stickers that would have been who knows how much more. I knew right away that I couldn't even consider that dress. Yes, I know that's not much for a wedding dress. Some people spend upwards of one and two thousand dollars on their dresses like it's nothing. I get it. But I was buying this myself, and my parents are simple folks who got married in jeans while standing in their living room. My father would fall out of his chair if I asked him for $1,000 for a dress. I didn't even ask. I went back into the store several times and tried the dress on again. Maybe hoping it would go on sale? "These dresses you are looking at will never go on sale." Great. One last time I went in the store, and the store was a wreck. There were racks of dresses in the middle of the tiny store. They were setting up for a sample sale. I browsed the racks and saw mostly 'mother of the bride' type dresses. And then I my dress. They hadn't marked prices down yet and I saw that the price tag said $852. And I was thinking to myself, "Lord have mercy, that is even more than the one I originally wanted!" The sales girl then informed me that tomorrow that dress would be $300. I tried it on. Sold! I was so happy. It was made with 100% raw, organic, unbleached fair trade silk. The designer was a local Portlander who learned to design dresses while she was in the Peace Corps, and it was put together by a local seamstress. All of these things were very important to me. All that I really cared about when it came to the look of the dress was that it wasn't strapless- and it wasn't. I will never see a girl I went to high school with on facebook wearing that dress on her big day and I love that. Nobody is going to say to me, "My friend wore that dress too!" It's mine, all mine! And I love that.

Good grief. I guess I'll have to write about the rest of my night later!

xoxo-
T