Dress Fitting Fiasco

Sooo the comments have been a bit lacking lately, and it's seriously not helping my motivation to blog. Where is everyone? :( Today is the one month mark (eeeek!) and I've got lots of loose ends to tie up for you guys! Today is also BM M's 21st birthday! Happy Birthday, love bug!

I blogged awhile back about how I wanted to lose weight and, more importantly, become healthier before our wedding. I really worked at it for the next few months and lost about 10-15 pounds. I've since put a little back on (school and life in general has been a bit stressful lately), but I hope to lose about 10 more. While this has been really good for my self confidence and my health, it caused some problems with my dress. I hadn't tried on my dress since I bought it last August, and figured it was probably about time I did that the last time I was home. I put it on and was pleasantly surprised, but also a little nervous. 

David, if you're reading for some reason, stop now. You've only got a month to go - you wouldn't want to ruin it! Love you!

Here are pictures of the dress I'd bought:

Ok from the front, but the back?

Not so good. The dress was laced so tight that the panel underneath was bunching up and the zipper at the bottom was sticking out. It wasn't falling off or anything, but it would definitely need to be altered, especially since I plan to lose more weight.

So I decided to call David's Bridal and see if they had a size smaller in the store (since it was too late to try to order) and they did. I made an appointment for the next morning to try it on and to make sure it fit. My mom and I showed up the next morning and brought my dress (although we didn't bring it in) in order to exchange it. I'd heard about other brides having issues exchanging their dress for a different size, but my consultant told us when we bought it that we'd be able to. She also talked me into getting the bigger size even though I told everyone I would lose the weight to make the smaller size fit - I should've trusted myself, buttt I didn't. So I ended up with a dress that fit me when I was at (almost) my heaviest.

Well, I'm sure you saw where this was headed - The size smaller fit perfectly and of course the consultants and manager at David's Bridal told me I wasn't going to be able to exchange the dress. First the reason was they only do size exchanges if you're going down (or up) 2 sizes or more because the dress could 'easily' be altered one size. Except that 'easily' means almost $200 of alterations when the smaller size dress wouldn't require any alterations. My mom and I said there was no way we'd pay that much for alterations when we just tried on a smaller size that fit perfectly. The second reason was that my dress had been 'out of the store' for too long. It didn't matter that it was still on the rack, still on the website, and hadn't been out of the bag. Ridiculous.

Like my mom said, she is definitely her mother's daughter, and I am definitely her daughter. We're not easily pushed around. I was clearly very annoyed and the consultants tried to come up with other 'solutions.' One of them said, 'The dress really isn't THAT big. Just don't lose anymore weight and wear a long-line bra - That will add at least an inch or two!' Uhhh, what bride wants to add inches to fit in her dress? Finally I just said, 'I would much rather be at a weight that makes me feel good about myself instead of staying at this weight in order for my dress to fit. And I wouldn't even be in this situation if I hadn't been talked into buying a dress that I KNEW would be too big for me.' And then I started crying. Ha, what can I say - I cry a lot and I was insanely stressed. So the manager said, 'Ok, we'll make an exception. We'll do the exchange.' 

Aaaand here is my new dress:

(We figured out the 'armpit fat' was caused by a too small bra because they didn't have one anywhere near my size)

Muuuch better.

So, there's my story and while I'm still not thrilled with David's Bridal, I'm glad they solved the problem. And I'm excited to wear my dress again, which is what really matters!

Did you have issues with your dress fitting? How did it work out?