Shopping for A Wedding Dress: Check Your Modesty At The Door

Finding the right wedding dress may not be as hard as I thought; I am keeping my fingers crossed.

By Sara Cardace

As you might have guessed, I'd been totally dreading the moment when the time would come to go shopping for a dress. I had absolutely NO idea what kind of dress I wanted, no idea where to begin looking, no clue what would look good on me. . .to be honest, I didn't (and still don't) really care what the dress looks like as long as I don't look like a total disaster when I walk down the aisle. So I sort of pretended the need to find a gown didn't exist, and the denial was suiting my needs perfectly.

...at which point my family decided to step in. My sister Lisa took the initiative and made an appointment for me at Kleinfeld, the (somewhat scary) massive New York institution where it seems like everyone in the city starts their search. I looked forward to that Saturday with a mixture of trepidation and outright terror.

Turns out I needn't have worried. I'd heard horror stories involving pushy salesladies hawking rack after rack of fluffy, cupcakey dresses on poor unsuspecting brides, but that totally wasn't my experience. We arrived at Kleinfeld's gorgeous new Manhattan storefront, checked in, and were paired up with a saleslady who was completely down-to-earth and normal in every way. She asked what I envisioned and then took us all to a cavernous back room brimming with dresses of all shapes and sizes. We walked down the racks and picked out about a dozen reasonable-looking dresses and brought them back to the fitting room to try them all on.

So far so good! Of course as soon as I unrobed (modesty being strictly forbidden at Kleinfeld) I realized there was a giant hole in the butt of my tights. Awesome. Equally delightful was the back-fat that was spilling over the tiny corset into which my body was corralled from the beginning of the fitting to the end, which made me reconsider the popularity of those bridal bootcamp programs I'd always thought were so ridiculous. (Why lose a ton of weight for your wedding when you're just going to gain it all back after the fact, and you and everyone you know is going to be well aware that you were only skinny for like one misrepresentative month out of your entire, pleasantly plump existence? I'd thought. I was beginning to understand...)

Despite all that, after trying on what felt like a million not-quite-right gowns, I ended up finding a dress that was really pretty great: A simple, ivory, a-line Reem Acra number with a gorgeous basket-woven bodice that was totally flattering and uncharacteristically simple for the line. Alas, taking photos is strictly verboten at Kleinfeld (a fact that's impossible to ignore as there are signs everywhere reminding you of the rules) so you'll have to let your imagination take it from there...

What wasn't perfect? The price tag. At $3,800, it would have blown my budget to hell. But at least I know there's a dress out there for me. . .somewhere. Sigh.