Dress for Donya's Wedding: I Have a (Probably) Winner

The mailman dropped a big box of brown dresses from Nordstrom on my porch this morning so I did a little brown dress fashion show for Cheapy (who asked which one cost the least). This one at left by JS Boutique was the winner! (I will, however, still keep looking around just in case.) Note: I wasn't really wild about this one as I shopped online--I just sort of threw it in at the last minute since it wouldn't make a difference in the shipping cost--go figure!)

The Calvin Klein (which they sent me in black) was disapointing--
poorly made, all lumpy by the zipper. The strapless Cachet taffeta number was just really bad on. The Tadashi was nice, but too small for me (and the most expensive by a good hundred bucks). The Shelli Segal was sort of confusing. They showed it with the belt at the waist, but the holes for the buckle were way at the end of the belt so it was slung low, and it looked funky from the back (although the fabric was lovely and it had pockets. I love a dress with pockets.) The BCBG was nice, but pretty pedestrian in matte jersey ("like all the other dresses you have," said Cheapy). And there would be a potential visible panty line issue.

The JS dress is also matte jersey, but it's really heavy with good movement. And there's a built in support system for the girls so no special undergarments will be required. (It came in petite and regular and I ordered regular--I thought petite might hit me higher at the waist and I wanted some room at the top since I can, you know, fill out a dress.) I also like that it's embellished so I don't need to worry about jewelry aside from earrings. (It's sort of got a Grecian feel, so I was thinking maybe a smallish coppery bangle would be cool.) I did go back and forth with can-you-wear-sequins-
to-an-11:30 a.m.-wedding? thoughts, but I decided if you are actually in said wedding it would be okay.

I'm thinking in terms of footware now. The gold Kenzie shoes in my last post are not going to work (besides which the next half size up was still too small for me). I'll need something more bronze-y than gold or something pretty in brown, perhaps an lightly embellished brown sandal with a decent heel. I have a good dozen in my Zappos cart right now, so I'm mulling over shoes (as usual).

Shopping for Bridesmaid Apparel

I'm in my friend Donya's wedding in early October and she's one of those kindly brides who does not require her closest friends of all different shapes and sizes to wear the same cheaply made over priced bridesmaid dress. (Thank the shopping gods.)

Our only directive for our bridesmaid apparel is that we are to wear brown dresses. It should be quite pretty in October, the four of us looking like a box of assorted Godivas. Picking out my own dress, however, is not as easy as it might sound. I have a hard time making up my mind. And I didn't start looking until summer time, during which there is not a great deal of brown to be had. The other night I actually had an unpleasant naked-in-front-of-everyone anxiety dream about having nothing to wear to the wedding, so I figured I better get on the stick and step up the shopping pace.

Good old Nordstrom--you can search their dress shop by color (as well as occasion and body type). It's a real time saver. So last night I ordered six dresses. They offer $5 shipping for any order, so I figure I didn't have to invest much for a private brown dress shopping session in my own room. (They're opening a Nordstrom at the Mall near me, but I'm not sure when. It's replacing Parisian which was sort of ick. Well maybe ick is too strong. But it was definitely not a Material Girl store. My mother-in-law shopped there a lot.)

So here are the dresses I ordered. I'll let you know which, if any, I end up keeping. They're all different brands (left to right, top: Shelli Segal, Calvin Klein, BCBG; left to right, bottom: JS Boutique, Cachet, Tadashi).