SYTTD: S3, E3 – “Once Upon A Dress”

I am once again asking Say Yes To The Dress to bring back the Informative Dress Graphic. I’m just a woman, standing in front of a TLC reality show, asking it to please credit the dress designers on this show. My dress data spreadsheet is suffering.

Anyways, we’re back, and the theme of the episode is (loosely) dream dresses. Again, this is every episode, but I digress.

Kleinfeld’s also has some new employees. First, we have new alterations manager Amy Berkman.

Amy has taken over Nicole’s job, now that Nicole is up on the bridal floor. She seems very nice, and she has a pathological addiction to bump-its in her hair. Remember those? I hope her hair gets to more and more ludicrous heights as the show goes on.

We also have a new consultant, Carmel, who is a bit of a wild card. She introduced herself to Nicole by saying, “I only take upscale brides.” Carmel has an unidentified background in fashion, and used to work in advertising and as a court reporter. She didn’t choose bridal… bridal chose her.

Carmel is not impressed with the budget of her first bride.

Kate wants something grand and formal for her black-tie wedding. She has brought a massive entourage of seven people with her, including her mother, sister, future mother-in-law, and future sister-in-law.

Here are Kate’s dresses:

Dress #1 is shot down for not having enough glitz. Dress #2 was her mom’s pick, and she thinks it “looks like frosting” and it’s too old fashioned.

Dress #3 is trouble. Carmel pulled this, even though it’s $6,600 – $2,100 over budget – and Kate falls in love with it. This is like, rule number one of bridal. Never put the bride in a dress over budget! They fall in love, every single time. Carmel absolutely refuses to admit that she pulled the dress in the first place, and say, “it’s too dangerous to try a dress out of budget.” Ma’am this is your fault!

Luckily for Carmel’s ass, Kate also falls in love with Dress #4, a reasonably priced Kenneth Poole.

Our next bride is Lisa, who tops Kate’s entourage with eight people of her own. Good lord. I don’t think there’s eight people I like enough to bring to a bridal appointment. Lisa is paired with consultant Camille, who hates her entire family on sight.

Camille’s lip-liner is far too powerful to put up with this nonsense.

The villains in this family are the two on the left – two of Lisa’s three sisters (the third sister is smart enough not to talk shit on camera.) Now, listen. I have a sister that is two years younger than me. I am intimately familiar with razzing your siblings and knowing they will still love you. This is not that! These sisters are some real bitches and I am impressed that Camille kept it together. Those are not the hoop earrings of a woman who practices nonviolence.

Lisa only tries on three dresses. She loves the first one, but after her sisters stop laughing they say, “it’s plain, just like you.” Seriously! When she tries on the second dress, another sister says, “are you going to do something with your tummy?” and recommends a girdle. Those are fighting words.

The third dress causes all eight people in her entourage to start laughing. When they catch their breath, they say it looks like scrunchies. Camille has had enough and convinces Lisa to put the first dress – that she actually liked – back on. Lisa has a bridal moment, Camille’s glare makes her sisters shut the fuck up, and we have a happy ending.

Adrianna, unlike the first two, has only brought one other person with her: her mom/maid of honor. Adrianna has done her homework and has fallen in love with a very specific Amalia Carrera dress that she is determined to try on. This is the dress:

2009 was a different time.

Randy looks up the style number for this dress and goes to try and find it. In the meantime, consultant Audrey pulls a few dresses for Adrianna to try on.

You might recognize the first dress as a rejected Kenneth Poole from the last episode. Adrianna doesn’t have an opinion on any of these dresses – she’s too focused on the fact that they aren’t the dress that she wants to try on. Randy isn’t having any luck finding the dress, so he ropes in Dorothy, Director of Merchandising.

Dorothy has personally selected all of the gowns at Kleinfeld’s, but she confirms that Adrianna’s beloved Amalia Carrera gown is at the Eve of Milady trunk show and won’t be back at the salon for another week or two.

Randy breaks the news to Adrianna, and she leaves empty handed.

Our alterations bride is Germine, who is absolutely convinced that her dress is too short because you can see her ankles when she is sitting.

Vera is absolutely not buying this argument. She tells Germine that, in her professional opinion, the dress is actually too long and she’s worried about tripping.

Vera also points out that because of the anatomy of the human body, sitting down is going to make your dress a little short anyways and there’s nothing she can do about it.

Ultimately, Vera says, you can do your best to persuade the bride about what you think is best, but you have to bend to what they want.

Amy comes up with removing one of the tulle ruffles from the crinoline of the dress, which will allow the skirt to lay slightly flatter and give the illusion that it’s long. Also, it saves the alterations department from having to re-hem the entire damn dress.

Germine is happy, and so we’re all happy. This dress looks like the ugly, real-life version of an animated Disney princess dress. Yep, it’s Pnina. I hate it so, so, so much.

Final Score:

• Entourage of 5+ people: +3 points for Kate and +3 points for Lisa
• Entourage that hates all the dresses: +3 points
• Bride has a “bridal moment”: +5 for Kate, +5 for Lisa
• Bride wants to be a princess: +3 points
• Manager Intervention: +5 points
• Mom body-shames her daughter: -5 points. Don’t do that shit

Total: 22/100

Thank you for joining me on another descent into madness. See you soon!