Crystal Pinckney: February 2009 Archives

Have you been asked to be a bridesmaid in one of your girl friend's wedding? Well in the past four years I have been asked to be in four.  I happily agreed to each invitation and ran out to buy each of the dresses. The first three weddings & dresses were beautiful. The dresses colors ranged from gorgeous lilac, candy apple red, to lovely lavender. The fourth, however, I never attended and have had the tiffany blue satin dress hanging in my closet just waiting to be worn. 

The story behind the dress:

Two years ago one of my girlfriends called and asked me to be in her wedding that following March. I agreed and was given the information on where to go & purchase this gown. I ordered the dress and received it a few weeks later. Months went by, and I received a call from the bride stating something had come up and the wedding was being pushed to March of the following year.  Ok, that was fine.  This gave me more time to lose a couple of pounds so that I would look great in my dress. 

The year came and went, and it was now time to start making preparations again to attend her wedding.  I received yet another call from the bride stating that she had promoted me and I was now to be a maid of honor.  (Oh joy!) The only problem was that I needed to get a different dress. (Oh, brother!)  The shop I purchased the dress from will not allow you to return, only to exchange for different sizes of the same dress.  This worked out fine because she had added a bridesmaid and she need a dress. I went to the shop and the employees were so friendly, they allowed me to exchange my size 16 dress for a size 6.   The bride informed me that she would cover the expense of my new dress since I had already purchased the other dress.  All was right in the wonderful world of weddings... or so I thought.

I wasn't going to spend my money again, so I waited to receive some form of payment from her. By this time it was the end of December and I still needed to order the dress, which could take several weeks to come back.  She asked me for my address so she could send me the money, and she also requested that I send her the bridesmaid dress that I had in my possession.  However, a little voice in side my head warned me not to send her the dress without getting the money she still owed me. This turned out to be a good thing because by January I received a text message (yes, a text message)... "The wedding is off...I don't want to talk about."  No apology. No explanation. Nothing. 

To make the situation even more over-the-top, I later found out via Facebook (yes, Facebook) that the reason the wedding had been "called off" was because they were married in December and just didn't mention it to anyone.  She still has not informed me personally that she is now married.  (Good thing I'm still not waiting to order that second dress...)

So I am now stuck with a tiffany blue, size 6, tea-length, tags-still-attached, bridesmaid dress.

The problem is, this dress is too beautiful to just sit in my closet.  How do I turn this around?  I need someone to benefit from my bad experience, so I figured why not give the dress away?  How do you win this spaghetti strap tea-length dress with grosgrain ribbon at empire waist with a retail value of $110.00.

Here's the deal: I want to hear your bridesmaid or prom horror story.  The more over the top or funny your story the better.  Email your tales of "bridezillas", bad-dates, mix-ups and more (along with your name, address and phone number) to prom@fabric.com by February 12.  Feel free to include a picture if you have one.  We'll collect our favorite stories, and to the winner goes the dress.  Obviously, we can't keep the good ones to ourselves, so by sharing with us you are giving us permission to share your story with the rest of our readers (we won't share your name if you don't want us to).

Not sure what to do with a size 6, tiffany blue dress?  You could wear it out for a night on the town or give it to someone you know who is going to a wedding or the prom this year.  A few embellishments and some imagination could turn it into a great Halloween costume (burnt-out bridesmaid who goes crazy, maybe?).  At the great price of "Free," it would make some little girl's dress-up collection the envy of her friends.  Anyway, you get the picture.

So send in those stories and give this dress a new life! Don't forget to check out our bridal fabrics, special occasion fabrics & wedding/evening wear patterns.