The Search for a Pretty Dress

So I already told you about the beginning of the bridesmaid dress search. And I don't have the pictures from the end of it yet because they're stuck on my mom's camera.

So it seems now is as good a time as any to commence with the story of my dress search! Let it be said before I begin that I do have my dress, so there's no need for nightmares and worried suggestions and all that jazz, mmkay? Okay, let's begin.

I always figured I wouldn't need a "dress search." There's this dress, and it's beautiful. And my grandma wore it when she got married, and my mom wore it too. And I always figured I'd wear it. I wrote a paper about it in second grade.

So a few weeks after we were engaged, Mom and I decided to pull the dress out of its heirloom packaging and try it on.

Dad opened the shimmery gold box...

I looked on excitedly....

Inside of the box was a blue plastic bag, which we happily opened, letting the dress see the real world for the first time a quarter of a century...but when we took the dress out, something was wrong.

Note the worried faces...

The dress had brown spots. One giant one right on the chest area, a few more on the sleeves. What?!? This was supposed to be heirloomed and protected! I wanted to put it on anyway...being a bride with her dress I was somehow able to keep the giant stain out of my thoughts. So we undid the pretty cloth-covered buttons...

And we oohed and ahhed over the 50-year old lace and silk taffeta...

I'd only ever seen the dress  in pictures prior to this, but in person I loved it even more. The scalloped neckline, the lace, the beading. Ahh, this was my dress. I decided I would cut the silk taffeta sleeves off, leaving just the lace cap sleeves, but leave the rest of the dress pretty much as is.

See the stain on the front? I was ignoring it.

There it is. Stain. In all its glory.

But, I figured I'd worry about the stain later, and I pranced about like a happy little bride in her wedding dress.

All that was left were some alterations and a cleaning! Lucky for me, J's grandma spent years working in a museum, and she knows a thing or two about treating antique fabrics. I figured I'd call her and get the stain thing taken care of, and then go visit the lady who altered all of my high school formal dresses (yay hometown wedding!) Dress? Check.