Dress Shopping

Yesterday I decided to head to the two stores in Appleton that carry Alfred Angelo dresses to check on size and style availability. I have three bridal gowns and one bridesmaid dress that I want to check out when my mom is here in two weeks. As fate would have it, each of the two stores had one of the bridal gowns in a size that would kind of fit me and another in a size nowhere near what I needed. There is one style that neither of them had. The store downtown also had a black version of the bridesmaid dress. I’m pretty sure it’s the one I’m going to go with. It is quite similar to the David’s version. It’s a little shorter (which I think is a plus) and it has beading on the edges of the layers on the bottom as well as on the straps and along the empire waistline. It’s a nice dress and I think it’s something that could possibly be worn in other contexts. I still have a store in GB, one in Fondy, and two in Kaukauna to check out. I’d like to find a store that has all three bridal gowns in a size I could try on but that’s probably not realistic. I’d like to be able to try all three on so I can make a better decision. When I actually make a decision I’m not going to post about it here though because I don’t want Adam to know which dress I chose. It’s been difficult having to go to these places with him or alone since I don’t have anyone else to do things with. That’s how it is though, and it looks as though things will all fall into place in a couple weeks. I should be ready to order the dresses by the end of November which is definitely within the suggested 6-8 month timeframe.

I was amazed that neither of the stores had any kind of computerized inventory system. At the store downtown the salesperson had to manually hunt through the gowns on the racks. At the other store they had to scan through a binder with handwritten style numbers and prices. It’s 2006. How hard could it be to get your inventory into a system of some kind? Just ridiculous. This has made me more likely to go to the remaining stores rather than call them though since I’m assuming they all will be this way so I’d end up on hold forever.

I also had a moment in the store downtown which makes me happy that I had already decided to do all the ordering and alterations out in Kaukauna. We had found the dresses they had in stock and as I was leaving the salesperson mentioned that they were getting a whole bunch of new dresses in everyday that I might want to check out - many more in plus sizes. Ok, I admit I’m not skinny. Yes, I could stand to lose a whole lot of weight. But I think it might have been a little insensitive for her to make those kinds of assumptions. It kind of annoyed me. *sigh* Perhaps I’m oversensitive to this kind of thing.