say yes to the dress.

[CameliousHumph]

Yes. I admit it. My name is Humph and I am hooked on crap TV.

Anyway. I have a couple of questions about American weddings.

1. Why do so many brides have 2 dresses? The ceremony dress and another one for the party.
   

1. What is with the weird shape? Sort of tight fitted from boob to mid-thigh then poofy on the bottom.
   

1. Does Randy have work done every week? His face is morphing into a Ken replica.

[poorbuthappy]

I love this programme too.
Can't answer though!!

[CameliousHumph]

Isn't it great? I want to get married again.

[DeliciousIrony]

I love this show and its general crapness, like the staff pep talks they have at the beginning of every show which try to be 'different' every time, when really there's only so many things they can say. "Today let's consider how we can help brides with overbearing mothers...or brides who are self-conscious about their appearance..." ad nauseam.

I love how Randy's whole job is just to hang around and hijack any particularly interesting/tragic/high end brides.

I love how it's seemingly impossible to go wedding dress shopping without your 'entourage' about a dozen family members and friends sitting around for ages while you carefully deliberate whether to look 'sexy' or 'traditional'.

And I love how they always seem to go for those horrendous Pnina Tornai gowns that look like cubic zirconia-encrusted lingerie. And they all quiver in awe with Pnina herself deigns to make an appearance.

I can't really answer your questions though. I'm not a fan of the trumpet/mermaid dress shape, I think it is usually very unflattering. And having two dresses (or more, in some cases) seems a bit decadent to me, and a bit of a waste of time changing between gowns.
I suppose then you've got a back up, in case you split the seams of your first dress or something.

[DuchessFanny]

Another good one ( just as viewable if you're into that kind of thing like me ) is 'I found the gown' no Randy obvs, but just as good, and he has his own Show now too.
My wedding was a looooong time ago but I can't not watch these !

[ApocalypseThen]

I loved that show when I was planning my wedding, and my dress appeared in one of the episodes (after I'd bought it), probably the most excited I've ever been about TV. Nobody else cared much, not even MY OWN MOTHER!

I'm kind of fascinated with the Pnina gowns. They're hideously expensive while looking extremely cheap, terribly ugly and bordering on obscene. They really are the dress equivalent of those transparent Perspex stripper shoes.

[RosyAuroch]

love this, I found the Gown and Also "Randy's Wedding Rescue". The fabulous campness that is Randy on the road with a truck load of wedding dresses...

Agree about the Pnina Tornai thing. I don't get it? Especially at 10 grand.

Didn't have a big fancy wedding dress, so I love watching these shows. It is making me think about a vow renewal for just me and DH (I would have loved to run away and get married just with us there) with us both dressed up to the nines. This encourages those daydreams to a ridiculous extent, but I love it.

I also love how they really take care of brides who have had a serious illness or have recently lost a parent. I couldn't do the whole "go to try on wedding dresses" she bang because my mum had just passed away from cancer and I was so aware that all I would be thinking was " I miss my mum, I wish she was here". But now, a few years on, I kind of wish I had gotten a better dress. The way they are makes me think "maybe one day".

There is also a hilarious episode on the southern version of "Say Yes to the Dress" where all the friends/relatives are being really nasty to the bride, making jokes about the dresses she likes, basically being really snide mean girls. The shop owner basically tells them all to stop being selfish bitches and get behind their girl. To great effect.

There is also the brides of Beverley Hills one, which is really beyond parody. I can only watch so much of that one tbh. Mamie Van Doren getting a frock and the wedding organiser who inspired the character in Father of the Bride trying to bully the store owner into getting botox are just too LaLa Land for me.

I have 16 episodes of Say Yes to the Dress tivo'd. I sense an ironing and wedding dress marathon this afternoon.

Bliss.

[Beadsbeadsbeads]

It is great trashy telly.

The ones that make me are the brides who choose those horrible gowns with the see through bodice. Why why why would you want a see through wedding dress? I'm all for looking glam on your wedding day but that's too far in my opinion.

Then 9 times out of 10 they are getting married in a church. The priests must be horrified.

I like the one that is sometimes on after I found the gown, where the bride has to choose between wearing her mothers old wedding dress or buying a new one.

The mothers dress is nearly always a frilly table cloth from the late 70s early 80s which has sometimes gone yellow with age.

They have a seamstress who reworks the old dress and she honestly works miracles.

[CameliousHumph]

Ah yes. The joy of daytime TLC.

So much more enjoyable than that Wolf Hall shite.

[WhatchaMaCalllit]

I am hooked on watching this (when I get the chance).

Don't know why brides have two gowns (one for the ceremony and one for the reception). Thinking back to my own wedding, I wouldn't have had time to change dresses between the wedding and the reception so that would have been a waste. Thinking back to my mothers wedding she got married and then had a 'going away' outfit so maybe this is the modern equivalent of that?

The 'mermaid' gown or 'fit and flare' is a flattering style that is more figure-hugging than an A-line or empire line dress. A lot of the brides to be want to show off their figures and this is a good way to do it. They must walk around though as if their thighs are tied together and they can only move from the knee down. There never seems to be much 'give' in the dresses and when they want to dance or sit down in them they must be very awkward to wear.

Don't diss the Randy-meister - he is such fun .

Some of the designer gowns are hideous and really really stupidly expensive and they pay it. Sometimes when they do a "Where are they now" show you might see the entitled (and very spoilt woman) who got her dad to spend over $30k for her wedding dress. That's a downpayment on a house!!! I also think back to when I was getting married and I wouldn't be seen dead in most of the ones that are shown on the show.


Also love "I've Found The Gown" and the owners of Vows are hilarious, especially the husband!

[TheFairyCaravan]

I love it, and "I Found the Gown" but most of them are repeats now.

There was a programme about a Prom/ Pageant dress shop, the staff there were so bitchy. I can't remember the bloody name though!

My guilty pleasure atm is Dance Moms.

[CameliousHumph]

Ah yes. Dance Moms. I do believe that is on tonight?

[Katiepoes]

I love this show! I especially love it when the father or the fiance is there, who are these peculiar men that want in on such a thing? Randy is my hero, I want him to come make me over, and then cry with me over some ancient wound. We would try on Pnina shiny monstrosities and bond over cava cocktails. The scary saleslady with the scraped back black hair and drawn on eyebrows can come too.

[DorothyCom]

I am 50 years old. I had a fairly low key wedding 26 years ago and bought the first dress I tried on. I have no interest in clothes and fashion. I watch maybe one hour of TV a month in the evenings.

But when I'm home alone my guilty pleasure is to watch this programme while I'm eating my lunch. I absolutely love it and I'm always gutted if it's one I've seen before. I have no idea what it is about it, but I love to get my fix.

[DrewOB]

I am guilty of the two dresses thing, BUT ( as if it was an excuse):

I have an embroidered overdress from 1850 which I will wear for ceremony and then carefully back away.
I will wear the silk slip with a shrug for the meal.

Also, my fiance and I are addicted to don't tell the bride.

[DaffyDuck88]

Another hooked on this. The excess and the drama, from the downright awful dresses to the stunning moments when someone gets it so, so right and you are prepared to suspend all disbelief and cynicism... for a moment at least.
I love it.

Out of curiosity I would even love to see what they'd put me in, but fear my request for a non-white-vintage-inspired-fashion-forward-with-a-dash-of-Miss-Havisham number might fall on deaf ears.... Then again, that Randy is pretty good

[invisiblecrown]

Best episode ever was this wedding special:

I love this couple. They are hilarious, both independently successful and wealthy, so its not a gold digging thing. They just have expensive and tacky taste.

The DH speaks in third person too. You want to hate him, but you just - they're such an endearing couple.

Their follow up show was equally car-crash hilarious.

[livingzuid]

I love this show! Even DH acknowledges that Randy really does make the show. He is so much better than the Say Yes to The Dress Atlanta show with Monty who is just a fake wannabe Randy and quite annoying, and that young guy from Say Yes to the Dress Bridesmaids (where do they find the women on that one they all seem uniformly dreadful it makes me feel a bit depressed for womankind sometimes). I also like I Found the Gown and Randy's Wedding Rescue but the best is Say Yes to the Dress (can you tell I am on maternity leave!).

DH also agrees about Panina and said it sounds like a Subway sandwich. I don't understand the programmes fascination with her as a designer either is it product placement? Also there seem to be a plethora of girls going for a big pouf with really heavy silver bedding up the middle and round the bodice and they look grim. I shout at the telly a lot when a bad dress comes on.

Great thread!

[livingzuid]

And yes I agree why is the fiance there? Would be interested to hear the rationale from someone who had their fiance choose their gown with them.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

DH and I were staying at a resort off the coast of Georgia a couple of years ago and happened upon one of the weddings of a bride from Say Yes to the Dress Atlanta. There was a film crew filming the wedding, and we were in the restaurant where most of the guests and wedding party had to pass to get to the function room (due to the way it was being filmed). One of the guests was late and she sat with us (she could see into the room) because she didn't want to go in while they were filming.

This bride's dress was lovely and all of the guests were wearing black tie and beautiful evening dresses so it provided a lot of entertainment. We watched the episode several months later, but alas no shots of ourselves (just as well; we were not very elegantly dressed.)

[VeryVeryDarkGrey]

I like a bit of bridezillas i gotta be honest!

[NeedaDiscoNap]

I LOVE Say Yes to the Dress - only Randy onwards episodes. Pre-Randy was, well, awful.

I've heard the shop itself is now awful as a result of the programme - they do a really hard sell and treat brides quite badly.

BTW, I had two dresses for my wedding, just because

[ElviraCondomine]

Say Yes to the Dress (Bridesmaids/ Atlanta)
I Found the Gown

and my and DD2's favourite, Something Borrowed, Something New.

DD2 spends her whole time shouting at the screen "It's one day! One day" and "That's not a shopping budget, that's a house deposit!"

And I wore a £100 suit to my own wedding - I didn't even have a dress!

But still we absolutely love watching them. Friday Brideday on TLC is our guilty pleasure.

[invisiblecrown]

Pnina is/was only stocked in very few places, Kleinfeld being one of them - it is product placement, but only because so many women go there specifically for Pnina dresses iyswim.

[mywholelifeisaheadache]

Another one who loves this show! Even better when there's an all day fest running!

[MrsKranky]

Ohhhh I love it when DP and DSD go out together for the day and I can sit and knit and watch SYTTD. I also very much love the bridesmaid one.

I agree about the seethrough bodice dresses, most definitely not my style, but have been known to have a little Google of wedding dresses (not even engaged!).