The Attire

As 'planned' originally, our wedding was to be a costume party. However, our mothers were unanimously vehement in their dissent. As comprimise (or appeasement), Kristin and Matt agreed to have a costume party the night before the wedding. For attire at the wedding ceremony, there were only two laws laid down by Kristin: 1) Kristin was going to wear a dress and be led down the aisle by father and 2) Matt could not wear a cowboy outfit.

Kristin continued to peruse the wedding web sites and glance at the supermarket magazines and was bombarded with a million stick models wearing dresses so big you wondered how they were able to wear them without falling down. She began her education on the difference between an A-line, sheath, mermaid, and ball gown as well as the different neck lines, waist lines, and trains available on each dress. She wanted to be open minded, but it was awfully intimidating when you’re used to jeans and t-shirts. Not to mention that the experts warned of the importance of having your dress at least 6 months prior to the wedding! But the wedding was now less than 4 months away and the search barely begun. Ack!

Kristin flew to Denver in May to witness her newest nephew’s birth. While there she dragged her mom and sister (or did they drag her?) to a few wedding shops to try on dresses. Kelly was obviously about ready to give birth so they had a lot of fun telling the sales ladies that they were shopping for a dress for her. The sad thing is that not one of them blinked until they started laughing. Tells you a little something about how times have changed doesn’t it? Kelly and Mom have the patience of saints! Kristin tried on so many dresses that they literally lost count. It was unclear whether the process was more painful for Kristin or the sales staff. They’re used to bubbly, smiling brides-to-be who get teary eyed as they try on the dresses, not some cranky tomboy with grease under her finger nails smelling of Avgas.

One place was so hideously entrenched in the whole wedding machine that when you walked in you couldn’t even look at the dresses until you had filled out a profile. When you walked in the door, a very nice but forceful woman told you sit down, fill out a form, stand up, pick out three dresses in your size & color, then proceed to the podium at which time a bridal consultant would be assigned to you. After picking out three dresses we walked over to the podium and were whisked away by our new bridal consultant to a dressing room. She then asked Kristin if she needed any foundation or if she had brought her own. Seeing her complete lack of understanding, she rephrased and asked Kristin if she needed a bra and shoes, which she did.

Mom and Kelly continued to get dresses, Kristin continued to try them on, and the consultant continued how wonderful they all were. They were all crap! And didnt reflect Kristin at all. One dress had these awful diaphanous sleeves and Kristin couldn’t help flapping her arms around saying “look I’m a fairy princess” or “gee, don’t I look like I should be in the Ice Capades?”. The consultant realizing this customer was probably not going to be spending much money in the store snappishly said “every bride needs to be feminine on her wedding day”. That’s when it hit Kristin -- her idea of feminine is quite different from what the industry says it should be. She wanted a simple yet feminine dress that would allow her to dance and enjoy herself without tripping over it.

Thank god for Jessica McClintock! She found a very nice dress in one of her shops that wasn’t too gaudy, but wasn’t too plain either. Though typically a fan of very plain clothes, Kristin figured since she was only going to do this wedding thing once it may as well be a little more elaborate. The only problem with the dress was that it was strapless, making wild dancing problematic. But a decent seamstress could sew a bodice onto the dress such that she could dance without risk of exposing myself to herself to the new inlaws. Provided both the material and such a seamstress could be found in time.

The seamstress was easy enough to find. The material took a bit more effort. Fairbanks had nothing, but surely it could be found on the Internet. Internet searches, however, are greatly facilitated by knowing the name of the product one is searching for, which Kristin did not in this case. It was something like a chiffon, but stretchier. Google was not much help.

About a month before the wedding, we traveled to Denver once again, this time to do some work and attend Lenore and Eric's wedding. In the Cherry Creek Mall, a salewoman was found that was actually knowledgeable and friendly. She deduced the name and manufacturer of the fabric, but did not have any in stock. Once back in Fairbanks, a phone call to the manufacturer resulted in the names of two retailers that might have the fabric in stock. One was in Canada and the other in Chicago. The Canadian store was out of the material, but the store in Chicago had something that sounded like it. They actually had four different materials that might work so Kristin asked for 2 yards of each, just to be safe. It arrived 10 days before the wedding.

Kristin immediately ran to the seamstress’s shop only to find out she was away moose hunting. Her associate told Kristin to return on Monday (the week of the wedding) and said that Kwon may still do the work, in broken English. Kristin just about died! Luckily Kwon did return on Monday and was willing to do the work.

We planned to leave for Talkeetna on Wednesday the 18th, so on Tuesday the 17th Kristin went in for her first fitting and just about died again. Kwon had the material pinned together, but it looked horrible! Kristin was able to keep from losing it at the shop, but did finally break down when she left. She was so disappointed, but figured she could always just rip off the work Kwon had done and wear the dress the way it was intended. Or she could just wear her cape all night. Kelly insisted on getting the cape, and fortunately so. Since Kristin didn’t have a veil or a train, the cape acted as both and was perfectly suited to the Alaskan setting. Kwon called on Wednesday to have her come back in to try on the dress again. With great trepidation, Kristin went down to the shop at 5PM to find that Kwon had brilliantly fitted the bodice so it no longer looked like a baggy sweatshirt but actually looked like part of the dress. SheI loved the way it felt, but still wasn’t 100% sure that it looked as good as it did without the bodice. But we packed it up anyway and headed straight for Talkeetna, where our parents had been waiting for us for several hours already. When Mom and Kelly saw it, they both assured Kristin that it still looked great.

We’ve since learned that Vera Wang is using the same lycra chiffon in many of her new wedding dresses. As usual, we were just a little ahead of the fashion curve. Hah!

During the dress-alteration saga, Matt remained fairly non-chalant about his outfit. At least on the surface...

On the surface, Matt had agreed to rent a tuxedo with the fathers. Everyone went along to the store a few days before the wedding, where Matt proceeded to try on the most brightly colored bow-ties and cummerbunds available. To his mother's horror, he settled on a sparkly red bow-tie and sparkly green cummerbund. Kristin remained non-plussed, living up to her agreement.

Behind the scenes, however, quite a different story was unfolding. Kristin repeatedly (and often, as well as regularly and frequently) mentioned to Matt how she wished he would wear a kilt to the wedding. Thus began a quest for the perfect kilt. After searching the internet for kilts, Matt found there was little chance of renting a kilt long-distance (Fairbanks happened to be fresh out of them that year). But through more research, the idea of owning a kilt (and the associated paraphenalia) became more appealing. Only one shop in Scotland (www.classickilts.com) was willing to create a kilt on such short notice (less than a month -- but we were busy!...). But the appropriate tartan from Ireland was tracked down, ordered, and turned into a kilt. Everything seemed to be on track, until we went to Denver shortly before the wedding.

Here it was learned by Matt that Matt's jacket size was not 42 but 44, or bigger. Here he was also learned (at Eric and Lenore's wedding) that not only does the groom wear a kilt at a scottish wedding, but he is to wrap a sash around his bride, as well as provide various items for the mothers and fathers. This led to a flurry of surrepticious emails and international pleas for help. Pamela at Eccosias, however, powered through it all without hesitation, and the goods were found, produced and shipped, arriving the day of the wedding in Talkeetna, without at least several hours to spare...

The unmodified dress, as seen in the catalog:

The Prince Charlie jacket and kilt, as found on the web, http://www.scotwebshops.com/ekilts