SYTTD: S3, E8 – “Hot Dresses, Cold Feet”

I am here today with a mea culpa: I was wrong. I swore up and down that TLC and specifically Say Yes To The Dress would continue to live in a beautiful, jewel-encrusted bubble and refuse to acknowledge that there was a recession going on in any real way. I was wrong! This episode starts with a store meeting specifically about how to handle brides with incredibly tight budget restraints due to the recession.

We do not, under any circumstances, have to “hand it to Ronnie.” However, he makes it clear that store policy is to respect the fact that budgets are more stringent and less flexible that they used to be, and to meet brides where they are.

Onto our first bride, who is an absolute riot. I love her.

Sacha!!! She’s from Vancouver BC, and she’s in a “long distance relationship” with her boyfriend of fourteen years, who lives in Seattle. Listen. I live in Seattle and this was a hilarious sentence to me. It’s technically long distance – but girl, it’s a three hour drive!!! Get a Nexus pass if it takes a while to get through the border, you’ll be fine!

Anyways, Sacha is paired with Dianne and she’s looking for something with sparkle and bling – something with GLO.

• Glamorous
• Luxe
• Opulent

Specifically, a fitted bodice with a dropped waist, figure conscious, with a trumpet or a modified trumpet skirt. She does NOT want a frumpy a-line dress. She wants to show that body ody ody!!! Dianne and I BOTH love her.

The only problem here is that she has a tight budget with a hard cap at $5000, but would prefer to stay around $4000.

Sacha falls in love with Dress #1, a Lazaro gown (we get a rare designer credit!!!) that is just over her budget at $5200. Dianne gets her a discount that brings it down to $4800, but Sacha is still nervous about spending that much money and tries on a cheaper dress. It doesn’t hit the same though.

In a tearful confessional, Sacha reveals that she was recently laid off, and the added stress on her finances is making planning a wedding really hard. However, since she fell in love with the Lazaro and feels really beautiful and confident in it, she decides to stretch her budget and make cuts elsewhere.

Our girl Elizabeth is here from the Dominican Republic, and she’s paired with new consultant Carmel. Elizabeth is getting married to her first and only boyfriend. Sure! She’s brought five very opinionated people to her appointment and has zero idea what kind of dress she wants. Here are some buzzwords she throws out:

• Sound of Music
• Chanel
• Editorial-looking
• Nicole Kidman (?)
• Princess Diana
• Traditional Korean gown

Everything on that list is a wildly different dress. Carmel is immediately out of her depth, and gets even more annoyed when she finds out that Elizabeth might want one dress but she also might want two. And her budget is tight!

Dress #1 is discounted for being a “ruffle explosion” by Elizabeth’s friends. Dress #2 is also roundly rejected. Elizabeth herself doesn’t seem to have an opinion on any of these dresses – that or her thoughts are completely drowned out by her loud entourage.

Randy shows up to try and offer some guidance.

He ends up pulling Dress #3, which Elizabeth falls in love with to Carmel’s chagrin. Carmel informs us that she was totally planning to pull that dress but it’s just over budget at $5700 and it’s so totally rude of Randy to just bust in. Randy, of course, is delighted that Elizabeth falls in love with the dress that he pulled. Randy seems to feel the need to defend his continued existence on the show.

Elizabeth seems all set to say yes to the dress until Carmel reveals that you have to pay 60% of the dress up front. She has a full-on bridal panic and leaves without the dress.

Next, we’ve got Medora. Her budget is very strict – her dad had five daughters and paid for everyone else’s dress. HOWEVER! Given that dresses are more expensive now, he’s only kicking in $1500 to Medora’s dress. She is definitely not mad about this, guys.

Now this dumb bitch, who is paired with Keasha, immediately wants to try on a $6000 dress. NEVER DO THIS. To quote Joan, “why would I test drive a Porsche if I’m here to buy a Ford.” Ford is here taking strays on Say Yes To The Dress, but Joan’s point is absolutely correct.

In the most predictable possible twist, Medora falls in love with this dress and refuses to take it off or try anything else on. Keasha is delighted – she’s about to make a hella good sale. Enter Joan, who doesn’t suffer nonsense and doesn’t want to see this bride make a mistake, to offer a reality check.

Joan gently tells Medora that she should take the dress off and try something in her budget. Keasha gets pretty pissed off about this, because she wants to close the sale, but I’m on Joan’s side here. I would feel pretty morally bad if I talked this girl into spending twice as much money as she wanted. Joan finally gets Medora out of the dress by asking her, “is this dress $3,000 prettier?”

Medora leaves without a dress.

Finally, we have an alterations bride.

You may recognize Dorianne from a season two episode of the show, and she’s back for her final fitting. She brought her father and her stepmom to see the dress. Hilariously, they saw her dress for the first time on television, and did not like it.

Dorianne’s dad gets very emotional when talking about this, but essentially he always pictured his daughter in a beautiful, princess ballgown and he wasn’t expecting the very chic lace dress that she bought.

However, as soon as he sees her, he starts to cry anyways.

Also, Sarah comes down to see her and it’s very cute.

Final Score:

• Entourage of 5+ people: +3 points
• Entourage that is WAY too opinionated: +3 points
• Bride has a “bridal moment”: +5 for Sacha
• Father/Daughter moment is nice and not weird: +4 points
• Bride wants to be sexy: +3 points
• Bride wants to be a princess: +3 points
• Manager Intervention: +10 points
• Bride goes over budget: +7 points

Total: 38/100

Bye beautiful!