Shared: Wedding - My Dress

I had an MRI yesterday for my knee and, honestly, I am regretting it today.  The MRI itself wasn't bad but I had to lay on my back with my leg in a very uncomfortable position for over an hour.  I couldn't move it at all and I was reduced to tears more than once due to the pain and my whole body hurts today because of it.  Right now, my knee is hovering at about 7 on the pain scale.

My appointment with an orthopedist isn't until the end of the month so I have to deal with this pain for another 4 weeks.

(*sigh*)

So, instead of wallowing in my misery, I want to share my wedding dress.  Yay!  :D

When Andy and I first talked about getting married, I told him I wanted a black corset with a black floor length tutu that had enough tulle to knock over a small child.  He said he wasn't a fan of his bride wearing all black to the wedding and, while that is my typical color palette, I could respect that.  So I changed it to a dark red corset. :)

Because of my size and shape, I knew from experience that I'd likely have to get one custom made so I started pricing them.  Unfortunately, the corset alone was turning out to be more than my $400 budget (I'm a frugal bargain hunter LOL) unless I wanted a leather one (which I didn't).  So after A LOT of online browsing finally settled on this:

from Kiyonna

The fit on me is a little different with the bottom of the dress being less fitted.  I got it at 40% off so the dress was only $113.  I liked the dress okay and tried as I might to love it, I just didn't.  It wasn't what I wanted and it felt so matronly to me.  But I was going to make it work.

Andy was trying to convince me that I should just get what I wanted since it's our wedding day but I just couldn't justify in my mind spending that kind of money on something that I will probably wear up to 3 times in my life.

Then the Wedding Dress Gods smiled upon me.  During lunch one day, I did a Google search for plus size goth clothes so I could do some window shopping and was directed to a post on The Everyday Goth which is a blog I've lurked followed for quite a while.  But since I wasn't in the market for clothes at that time, I forgot she had made this post.

One of the stores she listed was Corset Story.  I didn't have high hopes based on experience with other corset shops online but I found this:

from Corset Story

Not only did it claim to be in a size to fit me, it was also surprisingly inexpensive at just $159 plus $6.50 for shipping.  After checking out their return policy, I decided it was worth a shot and gave it an order.  I tried very hard to not get my hopes up.  I tired and I tried and I tried.  When I got it... it fit perfectly!  Thankfully, Andy knows how to lace up a corset. :)

Then a few days later, I lucked out again during some normal window shopping and found this skirt on Amazon Prime for just $42. :)

from Amazon (comes in a lot of different colors and sizes)

It's not enough tulle to knock over a small child but with the natural padding on my hips and butt, you can't tell.

Since the corset leaves me feeling a bit exposed, I picked up a lace body suit from Torrid for about $36 to wear under it:

from Torrid

I'm not going to count the shipping fee from Torrid because I ordered a few other things from there as well.  Even if you include the dress from Kiyonna that I'm NOT wearing for the wedding, I only spent $356 which is still under my initial $400 budget. :) I will likely change into the "backup dress" during the reception or later in the night when I can't handle being bound up in the corset anymore.

Oh, the shoes!  I don't have them yet but I am going to get these from Hot Chocolate Designs.  I know the red doesn't match the corset but they will be mostly hidden anyway.  Plus, it's a good excuse to add them to my small footwear rotation. ;)

from Hot Chocolate Designs on Amazon

For jewelry and accessories, I am not 100% sure what I will be wearing yet.  I like to have options since my mood changes from one to the next so I have about 3 headpieces, 3 necklaces, and 2 pairs of earrings that I will decide between the day of the wedding.  I already own most of them and only picked up 2 of the head pieces and 1 of the necklaces to add to the option list.  All 3 are from Wish so I only spent about $10 with shipping.  I also have 3 pairs of fancy black lace long fingerless gloves coming from Wish as well.  So maybe $20 total spent on accessories.

All in all, I think I did pretty well with my choices and was able to get what I really wanted.  Yay! :D

Wore: Operatic Bats

The whole bad lighting thing at work is getting to me. It's making me a little batty every time I try to take a picture of what I am wearing but I honestly have no idea how to get around it.  My apartment is seriously tiny and all I have is my phone camera.  I think, though, that if any other super plus size goth-y types come across this blog, they'll at least get an idea that we all can dress dark and still fit within corporate guidelines.

I snapped this silly moment when trying to figure out how to avoid the shadows on my face that I usually get. :)

Top: Torrid
Skirt: Jessica London
Operatic Stylings: Me

I don't usually post links to the things I wear because 1) most of the time they are old enough that they are no longer active on the website and 2) they'll probably disappear from the website so anyone going through older posts will end up with bad links.  I really do try to avoid the latter.

Since I was feeling a little batty today, I decided I needed to wear one of my batty bat pendants.  It also glows in the dark, which I never get to see at work but I like knowing that it'll glow if the lights go out or if I stick my head down shirt... which I may or may not have done just to see my necklace glow. :P

Glow In The Dark Bat pendant: Wish

My hand got cut off... in the top pic so you can't see my favorite bracelet.  I had lost the original about a month ago which me kind of sad because I wore it almost every day.  So I ordered a new one... and a back up to be on the safe side.  The snap pn the back is fairly secure but it must have gotten caught on something while we were running errands.

I only paid $2 total for it and I'm glad I got a back up because right now I don't see it listed on the site any more!

Bracelet: Wish
Ring: Amazon

That ring is actually my engagement ring. :)  I really wanted a red stone in a silver setting so we both looked online and kept narrowing it down and we found the exact one that we both loved.  On our wedding day, I am going to move it over to my right hand and wear just the band on my left.  It has a hart or white stag on either side of it which appealed to both of us.

From Amazon

There is a lot of legend and folk lore surrounding the white stag.  There are a lot of sites if you do the Google Fu on it but here's one of my favorites.