Running of the Brides: Part 2

As they counted down from 10, (I videoed the whole countdown and run) we started to scream! It was so exciting and my adrenaline was rushing like crazy. 3, 2, 1!!! We were off, BUT so were a million other girls! That line we formed quickly broke and we were scattered among the crowd. Gigi got slammed into the glass door, Meredith almost got trampled over, and Whitney almost got thrown out for “going in the wrong door”. We learned that this time around we will pile up in a cluster in the middle and go through with the crowd. You do not want to be on the outside! As I made it through the doors I let my flip cam drop to my wrist and sprinted for the dresses. I wrapped my arms around a group of about 10 gowns and lifted them up. Well the sneaky employees of Filene’s basement knew people would do that and to be fair they swapped the hanger hooks back and forth so they wouldn’t all come off. As I was trying to get them off some lady started ripping gowns from my arms! I’m telling you this is some crazy stuff!

Sifting through the pile of gowns and finding some contenders.

We had already agreed on a “meeting spot” in the store. (You could see inside the store from the parking deck so we scoped it out). Some of our team went straight there so the others could find them and so that Liz had a space to dress. Now as you might have read already, there are no dressing rooms. You undress and dress out in the open in front of everyone. You also have to bring your own mirror! We had gone to Target the night before so we had 2 already! Once my arms were full and I was headed to the meeting spot, I looked back to see that the racks were empty. The racks were cleared in less than a minute! We immediately started sorting through dresses. We would hold them up to Liz and she would say whether to keep them or trade them. Early on in the morning we gave dresses away, not knowing we needed to save some of them to trade. We later learned that we were to always trade for a dress, not empty hands. If we weren’t interested in the dress being offered we said no thanks and kept ours.

See the mirror! Yep BYOM!

Another lesson learned...Size doesn’t matter!!!! We learned this was a key factor. Hot sizes were 8, 10, and 12. (Unfortunately those are the sizes we will need.) We also learned that there were “Drs” there to tell you if you could make a dress fit you or alter it to what you wanted. Once we narrowed it down to a few good dresses we called in the Dr. We could tell by Liz’s face that she wasn’t in love with the dresses she had. A few of us, Wilson, Meredith, Whitney and I kept making the rounds looking for the dress. I passed by a girl wearing a mermaid dress and an “Elizabeth dress” hanging behind her. I asked if she was getting the one hanging and she told me that she probably was. (I wanted to cry) So I told her that if she changed her mind to please bring me the dress, we were in the corner with the orange shirts on. About an hour later she came by and asked if we liked the dress….um what dress? I told her we didn’t have it and she explained that she had given it to some girl in an orange shirt. Well there just so happened to be another group of orange shirted girls there and she mistakenly gave it to them. A few minutes later, Wilson emerged carrying the dress! She got it from some girl that got it from an orange group. As soon as Elizabeth saw it she said, “That’s the dress” She slipped it on and we zipped her up and the tears came flowing down! She said again, “This is the dress!” By this time we were all crying. Oh and another interesting fact, once you find your dress, your whole group screams with joy in unison! We checked it over again and again and it was perfect. Aunt Tamara paid for it and we were out the door!

Now about the ride home, sleep deprivation is killer! I was so exhausted from our journey that I slept almost all of Saturday! This was one of the craziest things I’ve ever done but it was so worth it! I can’t wait for March 18th to get here! I hope you guys are as excited as me! Talk to you soon!

Our trip layout coming soon...

Oh and if you want to see our Run last year just go here.

*All pictures were taken by me or my aunt.