September 22, 2012
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#580 – my wedding dress
I’ve decided to forgo the traditional western white wedding dress and go down the road of the traditional vietnamese wedding dress- the ao dai.
I mean I have to wear one at the tea ceremony anyway and I figured that I could keep wearing it all day if I can. I am afterall Vietnamese and I don’t really see a problem doing this other than the fact that some of my friends are telling me it’s a bit “fob” well FUCK you too. Nothing wrong with my CULTURE or where my people are from.
At first, i went down this avenue because I wanted to keep the costs down-wedding dresses can balloon to thousands of dollars. I can’t justify spending that kind of money for a dress I’d be wearing ONCE, no matter how great it is. and Yes I know the old argument of “it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, you should spoilt yourself but to me there are many other better ways to spoil myself then spending $8K on a dress.
Then someone sent me a link of a website where wedding dresses could be bought on the cheap such as $100 for the whole kit and kaboodle.I did browse through it but after awhile I got extremely frustrated because I couldn’t work out what style I liked more. And I’ll be damned if I have to go to dress shop to try on hundreds of dresses. I know they’re hard to put on and frustrating when it doesn’t fit or you’re stuck in a gown.
My partner (and many friends ) have asked me if I had all the money in the world would I still be doing this? where I’d be excluding the white wedding dress altogether. The answer is yes. Seriously, I’ve had my mum and aunts offer to buy me a wedding dress (no matter what costs are) but I’ve turned them down so money isn’t an issue, well it was never an issue to begin with.
In the end, I decided that I’d just stick to the traditional Vietnamese gowns because I wanted to be different. Plus it makes my partner more aware of the culture that he’s marrying into. He’s also going to wear the male version the whole entire day, something that he’s actually looking forward to doing. I forgot to mention my entire bridal party have to do this as well.
It makes my life easy because I don’t have to try to work out what dress I need, what dress my bridesmaid needs and what colour scheme I was working with.
The colour scheme was dictated to what we could find in material whilst in Vietnam. Yes, we were material shopping for our wedding in June of this year- I know we’re crazy. The only colours that we liked and found were yellows and gold which matched well with my dress colour (which is in the traditional red/gold) and my partners colour which happens to be Blue.
The thing is, I’m happy with my decision because I hate being sheep, I like the fact that we’re doing something different in a world where so much control is exerted by others around you. You know people think weddings are dictated by the bride. Some of it is but a lot of it is pressure coming from either your parents or your in laws. I mean if it weren’t many of us would have forgone the whole tea ceremony considering half the people who engage in this practice don’t even know what the meaning is behind it or what the process is during the tea ceremony.
I want my wedding to be very much my own… and something memorable for me, for my future husband and our guests (to some degree)..
and besides… if it bugged me to no end that there was no white dress.. i can always rent one later or even buy one.. No biggie
