You’re Not Just Paying for the Dress

Anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch.When you buy something in a retail establishment, you aren’t just paying for the raw materials. For example, in this amusing video on Slate, a bride asks why her wedding dress was so expensive, when the fabric and labor cost so little.
Dear Brides-to-be: you aren’t just paying for the dress. When you buy any dress any where, say for example, Nordstrom, built into that dress price is profit for the store, which will pay for that nice store, the real estate, the parking lot, the clerk, the electricity, the hangers,… you get the idea. You are also paying for the shipping, the handling, the boat trip and air trip from China/Malaysia/India/Mexico, as well as the designer, the patternmaker, the marketing and the wages of the multiple workers who assembled the dress. But why, you ask, is the dress so very much more expensive than a maxi dress?
One, there is more to a wedding dress than your average maxi or evening dress. Two, people don’t buy very many wedding dresses. You buy many dresses over the course of a year, but most people, (the non-Kardashian part of the population) only buy one wedding dress per lifetime. The manufacturers know this. That’s why they sell wedding dresses with so much fantasy attached. It’s your Special Day! You’ll have these memories for a lifetime! The Wedding Industrial Complex has spent a lot of time learning just what buttons to push in our psyches to get us to pay exorbitant sums for what should just be a short service with a nice party with guests and cake and dance music.
They know that no woman in her right mind would pay thousands of dollars for a Cinderella costume that she will only wear a few hours. So they make sure that you aren’t in your right mind. Go to any Bridal Salon. It’s fancy – it has couches.
You have to make an appointment. So far, all of the messages you are getting indicate that this is no ordinary dress. This is a Magic Dress that will transform you into a Princess. You want to be a Princess, right? I did the whole princess for a day thing, but back when I married; it wasn’t such a huge deal. The dress wasn’t that expensive. Nowadays though, they can be thousands of dollars. If you’re comfortable spending thousands, fine. But after seeing many of my daughters’ friends get married, I’ve decided this whole wedding racket is Bogus. A Conspiracy to get perfect sane young people and their parents to part with their hard earned money for a fantasy. Tell the truth, now. Don’t you think that modern weddings are BORING?
They are all the same. All the brides wear that same strapless dress. They all have the same script…yawn. Such a lot of dullness for so very much money.
My kids and I have discussed this, and we agree that we’re going to do things differently.
If they ever get married, they aren’t doing the same old same old.
We break those wedding rules – you don’t have to wear the official Wedding Dress. It can be any nice dress, it doesn’t even have to be white – but it can be. Make your own, or have a dressmaker make you a pretty dress. Be different. You don’t have to have cake.
Remember that this whole wedding Fantasy Script was brought to you by the same Mad Men who convinced women that a Diamond was Forever, when they are nothing but clear rocks. And we all know that they have our best interests at heart.
I spent $400 in 1980 for my wedding dress. I made my own veil (it came out great for less than 25 dollars!). How much did you spend on your wedding dress?

Exhibit A - the 50's sleeves

My dad was kind enough to send a picture of my mom in her glorious dress. Doesn't she look beautiful? Please note the sleeves: cute, tasteful, totally appropriate for church and reception.
Also I love the hoop skirt.When I was a child I always wondered how the skirts poofed out like that. "a special petticoat", my mom would say. Oh, how I wanted one! But the dresses of the 70's were pretty much hoop free. Sigh - the 50's gals had all the fun. And no one would ever have suggested that they wear strapless or sleeveless dresses in the fall or winter. There were Rules back then. In some ways I kind of miss them. Without rules, the saying goes, we have chaos.

The Lost Sleeves

My daughter has been to a few weddings lately and when she shows me her pictures (after the third wedding) I suddenly notice a disturbing trend: all of the dresses are strapless! What happened to sleeves? I'm a child of the 70's, don't get me wrong, I'm all for freedom of choice in what a bride wears. But I feel that sleeveless wedding dresses are inappropriate in church. Yes, it's true, I have turned into my MOTHER. Her dress, if I could find a picture of it (Dad, do you have one?) was very full and poufy and had cute little 1950's cap sleeves.
My dress had sleeves. But even a cursory look at the New York Times wedding pages shows the same sad story: the majority of the brides are wearing the bustier dress. It's as if a law was passed a few years ago and said all brides must now look as if they were attending the Oscars afterwards.
Then Tuesday morning the nice people at Nordstrom sent me an email and advised that they had new fall and winter party dresses in stock. So I looked, and 95% of the dresses were strapless or sleeveless! For Winter! I have nothing against sundresses. But strapless and sleeveless dresses for winter just seem wrong.
It was then that I realized that it was a Global Fashion Cabal at work. For some reason eliminating sleeves is part of their World Domination Conspiracy.
Join the Revolution! We have the right to Not Bare Arms!

Something old, something new...

This is a tear sheet from a bridal magazine of my wedding dress. I found it a couple weeks ago when I was looking for something else. It must have wanted to be found, because yesterday was Mr. Hunting Creek's and my 29th wedding anniversary. We were married on June 28th, 1980 in Berkeley, two weeks after we graduated from the University. We were married indoors, in church, so I did not have the hat and parasol. Instead I followed my mom's advice and ordered a yard of my dress fabric and from that made my own cap and veil. It was easy to make, and I also had the fun of having all of my bridesmaids take a few stitches in it.




With the tear sheet, I had also saved the blue linen handkerchief that my mother had given me as my something blue. She had carried it on her wedding day as her something blue and saved it for me to do the same. I have saved this for my daughter, (although she currently shows no signs of wanting to be married. But maybe someday...).
Since one of my favorite things every Sunday is reading the wedding stories in the New York Times, I'll tell you mine.
We met at Freshman Orientation weekend at UC Irvine. A friend had talked me into going. I was shy and avoided occasions like this. I told her I didn't want to go. She said, "You're going, you'll have fun. I don't want to go alone! It's settled." and so I went. Friends are like that. They sometimes DO know what's good for you.
Alphabet is destiny: my last name started with B and his with C. We were assigned to the same dorm. When we met at a toga party that weekend, he commented that one day we'd have to tell our grandkids that we had met at a toga party at Freshman Orientation. Of course I laughed. He was cute and funny and smart, but I thought nothing of it. There were lots of cute, funny and smart guys at The University of California. He didn't get around to asking me out until six months later. I still tease him about this. We've been together since we were 19. When people ask me for dating advice, I have to tell them I have not dated since 1977. Sometimes you just get lucky.
I love hearing how other people met their significant others. Even if it isn't at a toga party.
Happy Anniversary!

This Should be A Dress Pattern

When I was scrolling through the new patterns, this one caught my eye. I called my daughter over.(She is the final arbiter of all fashions chez Hunting Creek. If she doesn't like it it doesn't get made) She agreed. McCalls 5851 should be a dress pattern, not a tunic.
Wouldn't it be nice in pique with pretty lace on top? Or in a pretty floral? Or in creamy white and even longer as a wedding dress, or any other summer color as a bridesmaid dress? Also I feel obligated to buy any halfway decent pattern that has separate pattern pieces for different bust cup sizes. This sort of gesture should be strongly encouraged.
She and I will make one (or more) for summer to test our theory.
What are you sewing for summer?