Mommy Dearest

This week's topic: those wonderful women, the mothers of the human race...Who also happen to be the metaphorical thorn in my side. In the last four days I have experienced every possible mother stereotype. They've been cheap, controlling, and picky, but worst of all, they have been commitment-phobic. Now don't get me wrong, I have been able to sympathize with most of these women most of the time. I understand not wanting to spend $200 on a prom dress, I certainly didn't when I was in high school. I even understand wanting to wear a dark color as mother of the bride/groom without having to wear black ("I don't want to look like I think my son's wedding is a G.D. funeral sweetheart"-direct quote from a customer). However when a woman in her late fifties comes in and decides to be unreasonable, my sympathy sort of evaporates. One woman offered her many opinions before trying a single dress and then leaving in disgust.
"I have to have sleeves, I refuse to wear spaghetti straps. But I hate jackets, I refuse to wear a jacket. It has to be tea length, can you cut down a full length dress? Why are there so many ruffles on these dresses? This is the mother's section? (Points to a few knee length gowns) What hoochies could possibly buy those? Who wears things like that? These are all too low cut, what are the designers thinking?" And on and on and on and on and on it went. She basically ruled out every gown we had available to her in one breath and would not listen to anything I said. I suggested modesty pieces, chiffon shrugs and offered to get her a consult with alterations to talk about adding sleeves and she said no to all of it.
On the flip side, we have prom moms, who are a very special breed of prickly when they want to be. There was one particularly memorable mother/daughter pair and working with them was similar in feeling to that horrible, bordering on painful, itch you get from tags in dress pants. The girl was lovely, she was looking for a junior prom dress and really had no idea what she wanted. Her mom was pulling everything in sight, and I'll be honest, some of it was completely inappropriate. She kept picking up bridesmaid dresses that made this poor girl look like (to be perfectly Victorian) a spinster. I had her in a red mermaid dress that looked absolutely exquisite and all her mom would say was "Honey, you are not sexy. I'm sorry, but sexy isn't your thing. You are a Plain Jane sweety, you need to accept that." I wanted to smack her. She ended up leaving, dragging her unfortunate daughter behind her, because she couldn't stomach the $99 price tag.
Now, I don't want to be unfair. Not all mothers are like this, some of them are perfectly wonderful and sweet and are happy to have a consultant helping them. These are the women that make my job worth it.
However, one thing remains true of, oh, 98% of women.
Women hate their bodies. Every single one of them comes in and the first thing they tell me is what part of their body they want to hide. "I have a pouch" or "I have saddle bags thighs". And my favorite "Honey, have you seen these hams? I can't wear a short dress, they'll mistake me for a pig and toss me in the oven with some maple sugar glaze." What humor, such wit. Part of what I try to do with my clients is pair them with a dress that makes them believe me when I say that they look beautiful. It's not always easy, usually it requires suggesting that alterations can put cups in the top of the dress.
This week's wedding treat: I have two really great ideas that big blue sea of the internet has provided. The first is a fun twist on red velvet cupcakes...They are served in a jar and eaten with a spoon or fork. This is adorable, reduces mess, and if the jars are cute or if you monogram with the bride's and groom's names they can double as the wedding souvenirs. Click here!
And the second is a personal favorite of mine. It's a great idea for wedding pictures, or pictures to put on the invitations/save the dates. It's also a ton of fun, my school does this every year. It's Holi! An Indian festival of colors. It's finger painting for adults. Check it out here!
That's it for this week folks, I hope you enjoyed and let me know if you guys have any ideas for the blog! <3

Wouldn't That Look Better With Shoes?

Guess who gets to play with customers now! Yeah! Me! By which I mean that I've shadowed other non-bridal consultants on the floor twice and not seen a penny from it. But that is A-OK because I'm getting in some really good practice.
(Have I explained yet that I'm a non-bridal consultant? Yeah, I don't get to talk to brides yet. I work with prom girls, bride's maids, mothers, special occasion dresses, etc. I promise it's still fun and I still talk about weddings ALL day long (I'm not leading you, my readers, astray))<---[An overabundance of parentheses]

So, here is the selling strategy promoted by my place of employment:
1. Customer walks into store; greet customer in welcoming fashion
2. Ask customer what she/he is looking for and inquire as to whether they desire assistance
3. Ask all female customers if they need a dressing room then creepily stand outside said dressing rooms and offer unsolicited opinions, advice, and more products
4. Ask if they would like to try shoes on with that gown because honestly, how do you know if you love it if you're not wearing the proper shoes?????
P.S. Always smile. Smiles make the sun shine don't you know?

It devolves from there into a frenzy of accessories. We have shoes, earrings, necklaces, tiaras, headbands, bracelets, veils, feathers, rhinestones, SPARKLE BABY! Sometimes I feel like I'm in a classier version of a Ke$ha song and I lovvvveeeee it <3
I have no problem trying to sell any of the above mentioned items, and so far I have met with success. My downfall? Foundations, otherwise known as assets, Spanx or intimates, AKA underwear meant to smooth and shape the female body. For some reason I feel that it is deeply offensive to say to any woman of any height or weight "Have you seen our line of spandex underwear? It creates smoother lines so that your gown will fall cleanly and elegantly." I feel like I might as well be telling them that they look like a baby beluga whale hell bent on devouring everything in sight. However, my co-workers have no such problem. They just casually drop the line "Do you want to try some Spanx with that?" And the customers demurely agree and grab a pair. Just like that. Nonchalant. Metaphorically, I sit at their feet.
What I do understand is that selling a dress is mediocre and doesn't do the customer justice. Selling an ensemble is what women are really looking for. They want a "look", a vision not just an article of clothing. Accessories are what take an outfit from average to stunning.
I also firmly believe that accessories are the real place to express personality rather than the gown. A gown should fit well, flatter, and provide a base for a theme but a feathered headband, a chunky necklace, a rhinestone belt or even more understated items are the things that create a statement and allow you to project the image you want.
I would like to give you picture examples but I have yet to figure out how to do that because technology hates me.
I sound like What Not To Wear. My ten year old self would be disgusted and promptly tell me to throw mud at a boy to snap myself out of it.
I think the biggest problem with working at a bridal salon is that I constantly find myself fantasizing about wearing the dresses that I get to stare at all day. They're so pretttyyyyyyyy! I must keep reminding myself that I am feminist gosh darn it and I will wait until the proper time to get married instead of grabbing some guy and running off to Vegas if my ever so wonderful boyfriend isn't down for a super premature wedding. I will live vicariously through our brides. I solemnly swear.
Two things.
A very cute DIY project that would make adorable bridesmaids gifts or even just be an awesome present to yourself: homemade satin hair bows. I did it today and it takes like ten minutes to make each one. Hit up Joanne's Fabrics and buy a few spools of their satin ribbon when it's on sale, whichever color tickles your fancy. Cut the ribbon into 12" pieces (we want big fluffy bows here). Tie a loose knot in the middle of the ribbon and then tie the two ends into a bow with relatively short tails as seen in the picture at the top of the page. In a similarly colored thread put a few stitches in the back to keep the bow from coming undone and then hot glue it a barrette or something similar. Sorry if that was vague, I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have.
Second thing. Our internet treat. Click here to see some really beautiful wedding cakes. It's basically just eye candy since obviously we can't eat the pretty pictures but it might give you some ideas as to what you want your cake to look like. Nowadays anything is possible in cake so it's a good idea to focus and get your thoughts in order.
Till next time! (Comments are the happiest thing ever and I would love to hear any ideas or suggestion you guys have or want to see on the blog!)

Regarding Organization....

Today is an important marker in my life because today I bought a planner. This is momentous because it was voluntary. When I was in middle school at the beginning of each school year the home room teachers handed 0ut free academic planners that we were required to record all of our homework assignments in and then our parents had to sign at the end of each week to indicate that we showed them the planner and, presumably, our homework. This is not that kind of planner. This is a grownup planner. Undated. So I can start using it whenever I want, meaning today. I bought this planner because as I was leaving work last Friday and trying to figure out when exactly they wanted me to come back (I'm not officially on the schedule yet) it dawned on me that my purse was stuffed with sticky notes that had important dates and numbers scribbled on them. I thought that perhaps this was not an efficient system. Something needs to be understood about me; I am the most unorganized person I know. My room at school looks similar to an underground bunker that has failed to serve its purpose and was blown up. My notebooks and folders have slowly become one binder that merrily mixes work from all four of my classes and the notes themselves are usually things like "Russian Dramatists would describe me as a long necked samovar while the Greeks would say I am akin to the fair haired Aphrodite." Which actually is irrelevant in every way. The point is that me buying a planner was a mature decision to start a new chapter in my life. Right.
Related to this, I and a fellow new hire were asked to reorganize the slips in the back room. Sounds simple right? Well first of all, bridal slips are HUGE. They are giant, puffy monstrosities that are meant to be folded and stuffed into itty-bitty-tiny bags for storage. Physics dictates that this is vaguely impossible. After several catastrophic moments in which avalanches of tulle and crinoline left me crippled on the floor, we were eventually successful in creating a neat, sorted by style number and size, wall of slips. Imagine our horror when our manager walked in and asked us to figure out which slips needed new price tags. Which is exactly when I looked at the clock and realized my shift was over. Really, I did feel bad about abandoning her but I'll admit I muttered a prayer of thanks to God for sparing me the danger of further injury and then booked it.
In the wide world of the internet I've discovered a few interesting tidbits. For those of you who will be bridesmaids soon and are on a stricter budget than your bride, this is a cool and easy up-do that you can do by yourself or with a friend's help. Click here! If your hair is already straight, you can probably skip the first two steps. I also found a website that talks about wedding traditions that can be broken, like the bride's family paying for the whole wedding. I found this funny because all I can think is do people really need a list to tell them that if the bride's parents are hard up for cash it's okay for the groom's family to chip in? I love common sense. However, I did learn from it too. I had no idea that traditionally wedding guests have up to a year to present the bride and groom with a wedding gift. According to Woman's Day magazine, the deadline nowadays is closer to three months. What's wrong with bringing your gift to the wedding...?
And bringing this full circle, for anyone getting married or anyone who knows someone getting married, wedding planners (like notebooks not Jennifer Lopez) are the most brilliant thing the wedding industry ever invented. Invest in one, if only to make sure that only the family members you like get invited. ;D