Dressing for a Wedding (or, how I became best friends with Julie the Robot Shopper)

I’m going to my first wedding EVER in a few short weeks. Considering the alarming amount of TLC wedding shows I watch, this is pretty much the most exciting thing to happen to me since I discovered the Nail Polish Remover Pen (found at your local Albertsons).

Since I also just bought The Perfect Red Lipstick, I knew I needed to find a dress to go with it.  Maybe some people don’t plan their outfits by starting with their makeup, but THOSE people just haven’t found their Perfect Red Lipstick yet.  They don’t understand.



Classy, right?



Here’s the problem: I can’t wear white (obvi), navy (my date is a bridesmaid and that’s their color) or black (apparently this is socially acceptable now – but I’m too superstitious to take any chances).  So I decided I needed a green dress.

 Looking online at Jcrew.com (Anthropologie was completely and utterly disappointing – a sentence I never thought I would write) I found the lovely dress below, which comes in my size in the slimming color of Espresso.  It might LOOK black online, but it’s brown.  This could work. 

But then Jcrew asked me if I’d like to chat with a personal shopper.  What could I say? NO? I’m not a SAVAGE. I don’t want to be RUDE.  So I gamely clicked “Yes!” and met Julie.



No Julie...Just, no.



Julie introduced me to a world I only dreamed of.  My wish was her desire. I told her all about the wedding, the bridesmaids, my Lipstick, my hair…and Julie brought me choices. Dress after dress after chiffon and silk dress, Julie made some great suggestions (“Dusty Shale would look great with red lipstick!”) and some poor decisions (like this coral number). But the entire time there was something…formulaic about Julie’s interactions with me.  She seemed to be typing from a script, and where I would have taken time to ask questions (“Who is getting married? Where will the wedding be?” etc) Julie preferred to go off the most basic of my requirements and give me options.

However, one of the options was this. My dream dress. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s also $225 (Holy Paycheck!). I thought my budding relationship with Julie might have soured when I told her that I wanted the dress, but I’d have to think about and possibly look elsewhere because of the price – but Julie totally supported me! I think she knows I’ll be back online to buy it (who needs food in the month of October, am I right??).

I don’t know if I’ll ever get to chat with Julie again.  I don’t even know if she was a real person or just an automatic chat-bot. But I do know that I made a friendship I’ll always – no, who am I kidding, I’m going to be $225+tax and shipping poorer tomorrow because of that robot bitch.

Sigh. Worth it.  







-m