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True words from a real life bride
by Rosie
Hi RedHotBrides.com,
We had our wedding at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, CA on June 25,
2008. It was a very small and intimate wedding with a small picnic reception to
follow, not a typical wedding. It was not very formal, just a fun time, more like
a family vacation with a quick wedding in the morning and picnic in the afternoon.
So I did not want my dress to be the standard white wedding dress either.
While searching for my dream wedding dress, the first place I went to was David.s
Bridal. They had a huge selection of dresses, but the majority was in white.
Although I think that the white dresses are beautiful, it just was not me. I
wanted something different, something more inviting, something that would bring
the feeling of happiness, bring color to the wedding. And what better color to use
than red.
I am Chinese (mother.s side) and Dutch-Indonesian (father.s side) and the asian
culture believes red is good luck. My husband is a full blooded American Indian
who comes from a well-known hereditary chief family, the Chief Burnett Clan, of
the Potawatomi Indian tribe. In his culture, red and black are traditional colors
to his tribe and is extremely symbolic as the red represents many things such as
the blood that runs through the body, symbolizing life in a spiritual way. When I
see the color red, to me it symbolizes the feelings and emotions of love, romance,
passion, happiness, sensuality, and good luck, some crucial items to create a
chemistry of a strong and happy marriage. It is everything that I believe my
husband and I have had and will always have. So red it was and I was on a mission
to find my red wedding dress.
At David.s Bridal, they had a few dresses accented in red, but nothing with red as
its main color. So I tried a few on anyway and there were a few that I liked, but
it just was not quite right. The dresses I tried on were beautiful with some red
accents, but it was still a white dress to me, just with a touch of red. I almost
purchased one, but thought I should wait because I wanted to shop around to see if
I could find that dress that really stood out to me. So I turned to the internet
for my search.
Da Vinci Style #8220
I searched the internet with words such as "red bridal gowns," "red wedding
dress," "burgundy bridal gowns," etc. I saw the link to www.redhotbrides.com and I
decided to check it out. There is so much information on red bridal gowns, tips,
and photos, a great wealth on information I was looking for. I do not know anyone
who wore a dress outside the shades of white, so it was very helpful to read about
other.s experiences from your site.
Your site provided different designers who make bridal gowns in red so I started
looking at their sites. I eventually found DaVinci Bridal style 8220 and fell in
love. The next step was to locate a store which carried the dress. So I found a
few and began to call around for prices and to see if they had one in stock to try
on. Of course, noone had a red dress in stock to try on, but I did find one
location that carried the dress in white. I tried it on to get an idea of what the
style looked like and decided to take the risk and go ahead and purchase the dress
in red. I am so glad I did! I loved it and it was everything I wanted. The dress
came with a zipper, but I wanted to have a corset lace up in the back so I had the
store.s seamstress alter it.
Now came time for the shoes so I requested a sample swatch of the red fabric from
DaVinci Bridal. To my surprise, matching the shoes to the dress was even harder
than finding the dress! It was almost impossible to find the exact color red and
hard to decide what texture would match best. I even thought of possibly having
black shoes or clear shoes. While I was window shopping at the mall, I saw some
silver shoes with rhinestones in the window on my way out. They were shiny, but
simple and the heels were not too high. So I tried them on and they were perfect.
It matched the silver colored accents on my red dress!
So I had my dress and my shoes, now for the accessories. I was trying to decide
whether or not I should wear a veil because I did not think a white veil would go
well and I could not find a red one anywhere. So I decided to go to Joann Fabrics
and looked for some tulle. I found some red that matched pretty good, but it
seemed like it would be too much and take away from the dress. So I tried to mix
it with other colors. I decided to go with cream color under the red so the red
would not be too harsh. I was going to buy a tiara or something to go with it, but
could not find one that I liked so I left it plain with just a silver comb to
attach it to my hair.
When I purchased my dress, the bridal shop gave me a free set of earrings with a
matching necklace, but when I got home and tried on the earrings, it fell apart.
So the day before we left to Yosemite, I purchased a necklace with clear and red
rhinestones and matching earrings. I did not want the earrings that broke to go to
waste either, so I took it apart to take out the rhinestones and used it on our
cake-topper that I mentioned in the last email.
Our photographer was Alex Schoenfeldt at www.schoenfeldt.com. The photos that he
took are the ones that start with "IMG_". The ones that start with "DSC" were
taken with our personal camera.
For more information on us, please visit www.wiskigeamatyuk.com
Thank you so much for your interest in our wedding and thank you so much for
having such a wonderful site dedicated to red wedding gowns and other
"non-traditional" wedding dresses and accessories.
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