Operation Stay Home: Wedding wear update

Well, I am pleased to say that the wedding wear challenge will continue into the fall, thanks to the latest round of invitations! Hubby and I are honoured to be attending three weddings in the fall (and he'll be flying solo at one in Chatham, which is just a bit too far for baby D and I).

Congratulations to the lovely couples, who we can't wait to celebrate with! I'm looking forward to remixing more dresses and accessories, and for the last of the summer weddings (coming up on Friday), I decided to raid Travelling Sister's closet, since we are the same size and I enjoy her style. I tried on (but did not have the presence of mind to photograph) four dresses, and chose the only flattering one to wear. It's vintage and several kinds of awesome. It also got me thinking about the sole exception to this whole wedding wear challenge for 2010.

That would be my brother's wedding. That one's kind of a big deal, and thus it warrants a new dress. New to me, anyway. I love me some vintage dresses, and although I have a couple of nice ones, and have lost the pregnancy weight and then some, the old bod is not what she once was. My favourite vintage dress came from a shop in Bobcaygeon, of all places, and it doesn't zip up too well anymore, which is heartbreaking. So before Youngest Sister goes back to school this fall, we hit the shops to find a new dress each.

First stop: Rideau Centre. We were initially only there to find shoes for Mom, who already has her mother of the groom attire bought and ready to go, and didn't she go and find the exact shoes she was looking for, in her size and on sale, in the first store we went to? Oh, and they're comfortable, too. I'd be jealous if this wasn't the first time she's found comfortable dress shoes in her life. Anyway, so then we decided to look for dresses for ourselves. Baby D's already taken care of, but that's for another post.

So we looked in all the usual places:
Le Chateau (and I'm sorry, but if you want me to pay 130$ for a dress, it had better look amazing on me, and you had better have sizes for real women)

RW & Co (a few lovely things on clearance, but no great fits and no great prices either), and a few others. I decided that even if I found something nice, I didn't want to be potentially wearing the same thing as another guest. I wanted to go vintage.

Today Sis and I went downtown again, this time to check out various vintage stores. We visited Young Jane's on Dalhousie (the street is classed up, almost beyond recognition), which had mostly casual hipster fare, Aunt Olive's on Gilmour, and Ragtime on Flora. The latter two had much more in the way of dresses. At Aunt Olive's, the owner went down to the store room to bring up some more formal pieces when she found out we were looking for something to wear to a wedding. The prices were reasonable, and the help was excellent. Same thing at Ragtime, but they have so much more merchandise (some of which is rented out) that the quality of individual pieces can be lower. I tried on a beautiful blush-coloured dress from the 50s, and it was pretty much in tatters.

The dress I ended up buying was from Aunt Olive's; it's a fairly simple polyester/jersey one with an empire waist and a full skirt (both of which are must-haves). One of the neatest things about the dress is that it unbuttons at the front so I can nurse baby D if need be! How great is that? The other great things include the belt that the store owner found for me (which is impossible to describe without the adjectives neapolitan and stretchy, neither of which evoke images of beauty or class), and the price (54$ for the dress and the belt, taxes included). Now I just need a sturdy necklace and some cute shoes to match!