a weekend away

this past weekend i flew home to massachusetts to help my sister with wedding dress shopping. at least that was the plan when she originally asked me to do it. one airplane ticket, a day-off from work and a few weeks later she had already purchased her dress, veil, earrings, necklace, bracelet, purse and shoes. oh well.

so then the idea of me going home was to help my grandmother find a dress. except a week later, she had ordered that too.

so what did my weekend home accomplish? well besides being with family and getting to see bodies of water (sooo out of my element in landlocked colorado), we shopped for bridesmaid dresses.

i preface this by saying my sister and i have completely different tastes in clothing. but this is her wedding and i told her i would wear whatever she wanted. i tried to be very zen about the whole thing. it didn't last.

friday involved us traveling around rhode island and southern massachusetts looking at bridal salons. while i am supposedly the indecisive one in the family, my sister is the one who will have an opinion, but not voice it so as not to get you mad at her. this did not make for quick shopping. she claimed she wanted a non-traditional BM dress that we would wear again. which sounds great and considerate and everything - but if you don't really mean it, don't say it.

it is always a problem shopping for dresses that everyone will like. jenn has three BM (well two, with me as the MOH.) it's me, a friend from college and a childhood friend. but we had several problems:

1. i live in colorado, and won't be able to get back again until june.


2. she got engaged in february and the wedding is in august (BM dresses take three or four months to arrive)


3. i am 5'11''. the other BM are 5'2''.
   
4. one of the BM is almost nine months pregnant and refused to be measured.
   

we found nothing on friday that my sister and i would agree on. the one we all (including grandmother) liked, my sister decided was 'too sexy.' in her words, she didn't want to look back at her wedding pictures and think 'my BM are sexy.' except she kept trying to make my grandmother say the dress was inappropriate so she wouldn't have to. (my grandmother loved the dress.)

oh well. it's her wedding, which is what i told her. i would wear whetever she wanted. so on saturday her fiance and the non-preggers BM came with us to a bridal shop the next town over. we tried everything. though time was running out, we had a better idea of what she actually wanted, so it took much less time than the day before. we had three choices that we all liked, but ended up with this:

the color is sapphire, which should look really pretty on all of us. the dress is by jordan, style 1809 (the picture is off their website). it comes with a strap (that can be used as a halter, but it didn't really add anything to the dress) and a stole. it's floor length a-line dress and the top is very fitted and slimming (so i can definitely finish my filet mignon at the wedding and not feel gross).

sunday night we went for a tasting at primavera in millis, mass. she will be having the ceremony and the reception there. six of us went so that we could choose a vegetable, potato and beef/chicken choice. i think they are going to go with the filet mignon for a beef option and chicken marsala as a chicken choice. they both tased great and the portions were excellent. everyone will definitely get enough food.

on the weekend home i was also able to fit in some shopping. picked up some dunkin donuts coffee (as there is none around here), which should last us until we move. was able to hit up nordstrom's and get a really cute skirt, dress and necklace. also, though i couldn't get to fenway (my favorite place ever), i was able to get to olympia to get eamon and i some Opening Day gifts.