I said yes to the dress!

Twice, in fact. I originally went dress shopping at a little place near my hometown; its a crowded little place full of dresses for proms, pageants, and a few wedding dresses thrown in there. Its the sort of the place that records every dress it sells and what school the girl goes to, so that no two of the same dresses show up at one prom.

I went in before valentines day, expecting to beat any prom rush; however, I guess I forgot about winter homecoming, because the place was packed. And its packed already, with dresses. The aisles were almost impassible. But I picked up a few dresses to try anyway, and waited 40 minutes for a dressing room. I felt a little loyalty to the place; its where I bought all my prom and pageant dresses when I was younger. I tried on half a dozen dresses, and none of them really looked right, until I got to the last one. It was nice - it made me look slim - and it was only $150 dollars. DING DING DING. I bought it. It was the only one they had, etc. etc. etc.

Time went on, and my thoughts on the dress went from pleasure at my deal to regret that I hadn't looked more. It was pretty, but it was plain. The fabric was somewhat cheap-looking. It was nothing like what I always pictured myself in. Over the course of my budget wedding planning, I found dress after dress with comparable prices that were more in line with what I had originally envisioned. What's a girl to do? Here's a hint... know someone who would like to buy an inexpensive wedding dress?

So...
I havent been doing much wedding planning lately, since I started thinking there was far too much time before it was really necessary. I started thinking I was crazy to be doing any planning at all at this stage. Plus, I've been trying like mad to pay off my credit cards, so there hasn't been much money for doing things like silly wedding planning, I told myself.

However, this weekend was the going away party for a dear friend of mine, who is moving to Japan. And I decided that I need to do a better job of keeping people updated on what's going on. Maybe its narcisistic of me. But I don't care (is that irony? Or just appropriate?). And I need to start sharing this with people, so I actually have a reason to post.

So today I'd like to talk about sneaky ways I'm earning wedding money.
As previously stated, I'm paying down my credit cards. Yay me! And I'm also trying to save for this whole wedding thing. Its not easy, since Mr. Adorable was out of work for a while - damn the economy, and the economically worthless English Degrees that we both hold! - and has now gone back to school again for further certification. But I've been doing a couple of things that I really hope will pay off in the end.

First, I enter every giveaway I can think of. Maybe this will net me nothing in the end. But it costs me nothing but a few seconds of my time, and usually no personal information is even exchanged - most wedding blogs offer giveaways where all you have to do is leave a comment to be entered. I may never win anything, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Next, I participate in some services that allow me to earn points by either taking surveys, or clicking on links in emails. I can then use the points to get gift cards from certain merchants, like amazon.com or target. Takes a few minutes of my time each day, and sometimes I even get products to evaluate at home. Once I got a bottle of mouthwash, another time a shampoo. And once, a t.v. pilot. Anyway, I just traded in some points for an amazon gift card, which I hope to use to buy an wrought-iron arch (the sort that's found in gardens) to use as a sort of homage to a chuppah. Or maybe I'll break down and use it to buy books.