Dear ESB,
My boyfriend and I have been dating for 7.5 years. We live together. We are actively and energetically looking for a beautiful, inexpensive, antique (or vintage or estate or used or whatever) ring for me. It’s taking a while because I am determined to find the perfect ring. But despite the delay, we ARE going to get married.
But we aren’t *engaged* yet. YET.
So of course, I am already obsessed with all the beautiful wedding-type stuff I can possibly find. Of course. And I happened to find I a dress online that I LOVE. It isn’t a wedding dress, but a beautiful off-the-rack long dress from a very popular national chain store. I love it. I want to get married in it. No matter what kind of wedding we have (we are contemplating a small courthouse wedding with reception afterwards or a small destination wedding with our families and closest friends), this dress will work. It is beautiful and versatile, and I am OBSESSED with it. For the past two weeks, I have pulled it up online at least twice a day just to gaze at it. And it is very affordable by general wedding dress standards. About $500.
And I am afraid that if I wait until we are engaged, the season will have passed and this store will no longer carry my dress. Or that my dress will sell out.
So, do I go ahead and buy it?
I am really hesitant to buy my wedding dress before I am even officially engaged (aren’t I jinxing it?), and I am worried that I will be missing out on the mother-daughter shopping for wedding dresses thing. Oh, and it is more money than I have ever paid for any article of clothing in my life (or ever will). In wedding dress terms, it is a steal. But still, plopping down the debit card for $500 for a dress that I love and hope to someday wear for my as-yet-unplanned wedding just seems scary! And it just seems so momentous – like, screw the ring, this is the moment when we officially become engaged . . .
What do you think? Buy the dress, or wait for the proposal and the traditional dress shopping thing?
Thanks,
Forget the rock, get me an engagement frock!
*****
Fuck yeah, buy it. (If only to try it on and return it and get the damn thing out of your system. Otherwise it will always be The One That Got Away.)
Photo by Jens Ingvarsson via Pennyweight via Anabela Carneiro
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ReplyDeleteI agree, buy it so you don't look back and think it was the one. For some reason I am guessing this store is Nordstroms or something similiar, who usuallly have great return policies. I swear I have friends who have returned something a year later (but double check their policy)from there. If you feel like you are going to miss out on dress shopping with your mom, just put that dress in the back of your closet and tell yourself its your backup. If you don't find something you love with your mom you will know you have already found the dress and I am sure she will be just as thrilled when you try that one on for her.
ReplyDeleteArggg.. I can't post without at least one embarrassingly awful typo. I need to use the preview option.
ReplyDeleteAnyway... what I wanted to say is that I never had an engagement ring and I don't think my marriage is doomed. I say get the dress and try it on. And if it's the one, then great. Less to do later.
No pictures?! I'm dying to know what this dress looks like!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with ESB. I found a dress online I LOVED and swore up and down it was the *one*- but I hesitated because I wanted the dress shopping "experience", or thought my mom wanted it. She told me to save us BOTH some time and just order it- I did. It looked like crap on.
ReplyDeleteyou don't need a ring to be engaged. my guy proposed without a ring, and then we got one. But we were engaged from the moment he popped the question, not from when I adorned my finger with a piece of metal.
ReplyDeleteSo, are you engaged or not? Maybe you should be really clear with each other, then you won't be so hesitant about buying a wedding dress for this hypothetical wedding?
what is going on with all of these posts asking for virtual strangers to bless a non-engagement? can we just have a post clarifying the etiquette or non-etiquette of "engagement" / i kind of thought nowadays you just talked to your partner and were like, yep we're ready after 7.550 years, let's formalize it by getting a ring (maybe i will pretend i didn't know it was coming?) or declaring it out loud at thanksgiving dinner with all the fam blah blah but maybe not???
ReplyDeletehave you talked to your partner about this? apparently i am crazy, because i thought getting engaged and married were decisions you kind of did with your partner and not your mean non-gal-pals on a stranger's blog? maybe not? what?
Dress shopping with your mom isn't always all is't cracked up to be either.
ReplyDeleteI'm a traditionalist when it comes to this stuff, so I would wait until it's official THEN I would begin wedding-planning. But it sounds like you want us to give you the go-ahead, so... have at it. However, I bought my wedding gown right after my fiance and I got engaged. It was the first wedding-y thing I did, and, as we began planning everything else, the venue, the type of wedding we wanted, etc., I began having MAJOR doubts about the dress. I think I bought it TOO EARLY, and I nearly fell out of love with it. Something to keep in mind.
ReplyDeleteOh, and there are so many beautiful antique rings here. Good luck! xo.
I would grab the dress if you have the ability to return it if you don't like it.
ReplyDeleteOn another note:
1. Dress shopping with mom = not as much fun as it looks. Unless of course your mom loves shopping. Mine does not, has a horrible sense of what looks good on me and is overly emotional... We did not do the dress shopping thing and I don't feel like I missed out on anything.
2. I think if you were worried about Jinxing anything based on old wives tales, you wouldn't have moved in together, you wouldn't be having sex, and you wouldn't be picking out your ring together.
In my opinion, there is no need to fret about tradition and jinxing, when you guys clearly don't have a "traditional" thing going on.
3. And more a general question: Why DO people care so much about tradition when they are getting married? I swear our brains turn to mush when we start the wedding planning process...
um... anon 7.27
ReplyDeletewtf with #2? if non-'traditional' is having a healthy relationship living together and knowing each other intimately than ALL relationships should be non-'traditional' if people want to REALLY know their partners.
I see the point you were trying to make, but that bit just irked me.
Something in my gut says it's not a good idea. The whole pre-engaged thing can be a bit precarious...
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with @anon 7:13. Talk to him. What in the world do we know about your relationship?
Buy it!
ReplyDeleteI bought a dress before we were officially engaged and loved it until we started actually planning the wedding. As it started making less and less I found myself trying to think of alterations that could be made to make it more "me." After way too much of that train of thought, I finally ordered another dress - best decision ever!
ReplyDeletei feel like i am in a similar boat! i *know* we are going to get married and we are not officially engaged, but i am getting antsy about planning the wedding! it's hard not to think about it when you're just waiting on a ring...seems silly!
ReplyDelete@nicole DID SHE ASK FOR YOUR HELP WITH RINGS?? NO. NO SHE DID NOT.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend whose girlfriend bought a dress because she was certain that they were going to get engaged, but in fact he wasn't ready. He found the dress, and freaked out. All I'm saying is make sure that you are really on the same page about things before you start planning weddings and buying dresses. If you have had those conversations, and you wouldn't feel like you needed to hide the fact that you bought a dress from him, I say go for it, at least so you can try it on.
ReplyDeletegreat advice Emily, I totally agree. you should be comfortable talking about this with your partner, if you're ok with telling him you found your dress and are going to order it and he says 'go for it!' then it would make the situation much less cringe-y, and you probably much less hesitant.
ReplyDeleteI was 'pre-engaged' for about a year before we got properly engaged and you know what, I have changed my mind full circle from what I thought I wanted since then! Don't feel the need to plan too early, honestly.
I should clarify, I loathe the term 'pre-engaged' .. so for correction: I felt pre-engaged, my partner was very happily in a long-term relationship in which we sometimes talked about marriage and agreed we saw each other getting married. I saw that ASAP, he saw that a year later. that, my friends, is the pre-engaged state.
ReplyDeletebut in other cases, as you hear from some stories - the couples never really communicate and pre-engaged comes right before breaking up.
I agree with Emily--as long as your boyfriend is comfortable with all of this, I don't see a reason not to order it. I struggled a ton finding an affordable dress that I liked and some dresses that I thought I liked, I HATED once they were on my body.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who wants to see the dress? Not to critique, just out of curiosity.
ReplyDeleteIs this a joke? If you love it then buy it but one is either engaged or not (you are not) so don't be buying it for 'the wedding'.
ReplyDeleteAmy
Why do you need a bunch of opinions from people you don't even know to make this decision??!! Good God ... buy the damn thing already. This isn't brain surgery, you know.
ReplyDeleteI had to. IT IS FUCKING EVERYWHERE
ReplyDeleteBUY IT! :) My sister-in-law bought her dress on sale before she and my brother were engaged, and they are happily married to this day!
ReplyDeletehmmm.. i think you should buy the dress, but i have to say that telling your boyfriend you're buying your wedding dress when he hasn't even proposed is a little *pressure-y*. even if that's not what you're trying to do, it can very easily come across that way. bottom line, yeah, you're getting married or whatever, but you're still NOT engaged. so, keep the purchase to yourself. that, or YOU do the proposing (why do you need rings to be engaged?) and go wedding dress shopping already. ;)
ReplyDeleteoh man, reading all these comments makes me think that, perhaps, i've dated a different type of guy than most of you. planning my wedding in ANY WAY without being engaged would have made all of my ex-boyfriends (including my husband) run for the hills... and i can't say i would blame them. no need to come across all desperado, ladies.
ReplyDelete@Celia: they're buying an engagement ring together, and have already agreed that they're going to get engaged/married. so why would talking about buying the dress suddenly make him run for the hills??
ReplyDeleteBuy the dress.
I wish I could be more helpful but all I could think about (and have been able to think about) since I say that picture was which type of flowers should I use?
ReplyDelete(I'm going with peonies - sorry).