Wedding Dress!

Today was the big wedding dress shopping day. A few of us gals got together at the local coffee shop for breakfast and then walked around downtown Lampang looking for the perfect dress. I really wanted a Thai-style dress but wasn't sure if they would look good on my body. They seem to be made more for people with a slim figure, not for curvy bodies. The first place we went only had one dress I was interested in. It had some beautiful applique on it, but it looked too much like a prom dress. I knew I didn't want a white dress because I'm so pale already that I would look too washed-out. I thought something with a gold or pink tint would work better with my skin tone.

The second place had a lot more options and I was able to fit into a few Thai dresses but they didn't look great. It's hard to know if you would like something when it doesn't fit properly. The sales assistants kept saying, "We can make it for you!" but I worried that after they went to all that trouble, I might not even like the dress. Finally the last shop of the day had a lot of nice dresses but the place was very unorganized. It was hard to see the stock. I picked out one dress the minute I walked it. It was perfect...had a bit of fairy magic to it, was a very light gold color and it looked simple and elegant. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get it over my hips :( I tried on a few more dresses and found a coupleThai-style ones that I really liked. Finally the shop woman showed me that she could open the first dress and I tried it on again. I felt really comfortable and beautiful the minute I tried it on. There was a problem with the straps being too short but she ended up unsewing them so i could see what it will look like after the alterations. I fell in love with it.

We started to talk about prices and to have the dress custom-made for me would cost about 15,000 baht. It probably doesn't seem like that much by American standards, but that's pretty expensive for here. We started talking about whether she could alter the dress off the rack. It turns out that she will be able to let it out a bit and pull it down so the dress won't look short on me. The dress will cost 4,000 baht including the cost of alterations and cleaning!!!! I couldn't pass it by so I made her a down payment and an appointment for a fitting on Feb. 6th. I figure that I might end up renting a Thai-style dress for the wedding ceremony here and wearing this dress for the reception and the wedding in the states. So I feel really happy and lucky that it was such an easy process. I can see how it can be so frustrating...especially when I was too big for everything. But I can't wait until everyone can see my dress on me!!!