Now Presenting...The Dress

The dress adventure begins....
The dress adventure ends...

After spending quite a lot of time deliberating over whether or not I wanted to show Calvin which dress I bought, I figured out it would be much easier to just tell him. Some florists wanted to see pictures of my dress, and since Calvin planned to go to those appointments, he would inevitably see pictures of it.

So here it is on the model:


The dress I thought would be mine- Kayla by Jenny Yoo.

It was (and is!) the perfect dress for me. Long, bridal without looking poofy or froofy, with a train that already has a built in bustle- so no need to pay a seamstress to put one in! With one simply tug, it is bustled.

Now, Jenny Yoo has a slightly shady policy when it comes to ordering dresses as "wedding gowns". They basically mark up the price if you are using it for a wedding gown, instead of a bridesmaid dress. Their justification is that the white dresses are double-lined, and are made in a room that is only for making white and off-white dresses.

$420 for "non-white" and $735 for "white" and "off-white." The bridal variation also comes with fabric upgrades from silk shangtung to Eastern silk shantung ($775) or bridal duchess satin ($1125) or Mikado silk ($1125). Extra length of 3" (which I needed) is $15 for the shangtung, and $30 for satin and mikado silk. Not bad when many higher end designers $200+ for extra length.

That said, they do offer the dress in "cream" or "snow", which are more ivory and champagne colored, respectively. Those are offered at the bridesmaid dress prices. That said, given the exorbitant prices of wedding dresses, even with the markup, Jenny Yoo's bridal alternatives collection is comparatively reasonably priced for silk bridal dresses. Plus, the shantung is so much lighter than mikado silk or satin, which makes it ideal for weddings in warm locales.

The absolutely awesome shop where I bought my dress, All Brides Beautiful, carefully explained the pricing, and encouraged me to consider the cream color, if I wanted a light colored gown. Their prices are the same retail price listed on the Jenny Yoo website.

These are the colors I considered.

Now in my earlier post, I did say that I got something very different from what I thought that I would get. Though the dress is the one that I wanted (and dreamed about), I did cave to peer pressure (and a desire to at least look a little bit like a bride), and did not get a red dress. But for now, I'm not going to say which color I actually got- because there have to be some surprises on the wedding day :)

Did anyone else consider getting a non-white dress? Did you end up getting the colorful dress, or did you (like me) cave to pressures to look more like a traditional bride?