Something Borrowed.... Er, Not So Much

Remember when my mom and I had lofty goals of altering my cousins' beautiful white lace cocktail dress to wear for our rehearsal dinner? The custom-made dress that both of my cousins wore at their own rehearsal dinners? Well, we tried and tried, and my mom slaved and slaved over the revised corset back, but in the end it just wasn't working. The corset looked really pretty, but the back of the dress was still not lying flat due to the fact that I am short-waisted and the extra material had nowhere else to go. So, we finally decided to let it go and find something else for me to wear at the rehearsal dinner. Mind you, this was all on Sunday night, and the wedding is THIS Saturday, meaning the rehearsal dinner is THIS Friday. Yes, tomorrow!

Enter one of my favorite stores ever, Anthropologie. I am lucky enough to live in the city where Anthro/Urban Outfitters/Free People have their headquarters, so their retail stores are never hard to find in this area. This can also be a bit dangerous, though, as their clothes and charming housewares aren't always budget friendly, yet my money still seems to somehow jump out of my wallet and into their cash registers whenever I step foot in there. My office is literally a 5 minute walk from the very first Anthropologie store that ever opened, so after checking online to see what white dresses they are carrying at the moment and immediately finding an adorable contender, my mom and I made a plan to meet there on my lunch hour on Monday.

Fortunately for me, this was the easiest shopping trip ever. They had the dress I had seen online in my size, I tried it on, it fit and was adorable, and we were in-and-out in about 15 minutes! Here is the darling little dress I will now be wearing at our rehearsal dinner tomorrow night:

Hour by Hour dress from Anthropologie

I really, really didn't want to spend a lot of money on a new rehearsal dinner dress, but this dress cost a whopping $228. Yikes. I was desperate, tired, and pressed for time, but still, that's a lot of money. Fortunately, my mom just happened to have a $180 Anthro gift card that she received from some friends as a retirement gift back in January, and she really doesn't shop at Anthro, so she told me I could have it. Score! Free money! In the end this dress only set me back $48, and my mom was more than happy to finally be rid of the gift card she could never find anything to do with.

I was also able to find some cute shoes on clearance yesterday at Macy's:

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These Bandolino shoes were marked down to $34.50 from the original price of $69.00. Score! (A second time!)

I am now all set for our rehearsal dinner and I'm glad to be wearing a dress I'll feel comfortable in. I'm sad to not be carrying on the tradition of wearing my cousins' dress, but we sure did try to make it work! In the end, it just wasn't happening. Have you had to let go of any traditions due to practicality?