The Random Ramblings of Samm Diep

A Very Productive Weekend (and it's not even over yet)

I know. I know. It's super early for me to be blogging since I'm not usually even awake in the double-digits.

I got up early to see Rose off. She got in Friday evening and she, Hikle, and I went to this AWESOME tapas place called Swimclub 32 for dinner (which, now that I've seen it, I would've eaten there just for the website alone - Nevermind, the "This is why you come to Swimclub 32" photos cancel out that thought).

They serve organically sourced, farm fresh produce, meats, and fish in a small plate offering (mini entrees) or large plates. Their dishes are prepared from scratch each morning, and many of the fruits and vegetables are grown in a garden right on the roof of the building! The meal was exquisite!

We headed home early after dinner as we had a huge day ahead of us. Bright & early at 9:30am, Rose & I picked up my mom & Hikle and headed to Cherry Creek for our first of four stops, Felice Bridal where I had my very first experience EVER of bridal shopping. With my mom, maid of honor, man of honor, a mission and a laptop in hand, I vigorously tried on about five or six dresses (I'd have to check the official notes for the exact number). Hikle took thorough notes on each dress while Rose dictated and my mom & I consulted. It was a very scientific process and we didn't want to miss any detail for finding that perfect dress.

Next, we headed to Andrisen Morton where Rose & I were both very excited about from the website until we got there and realized how incompetent the sales person was. She completely didn't listen to us and kept trying to get me to try on some dress that I repeatedly said I didn't like and she didn't know the answers to any of our questions. She was pretty worthless. She wouldn't go get the dresses for us that we said I wanted to try on and when Rose tried to take something off the rack she told her not to touch them and then scratched Rose. She didn't even apologize. That place left a bad taste in my mouth. Fortunately, I didn't find my ultimate dream dress there because I won't be ordering ANYTHING from that place. I wouldn't trust it to get here correctly and in time.

After all that, we'd worked up an appetite (which was good, because it was time for our scheduled lunch). I had the entire day scheduled three weeks ago with the times and places we needed to be and when we would be eating lunch. After a quick stop at Piatti's, we headed off to Priscilla of Boston. They had a large selection here and also found a couple dresses that caught our eyes.

Needless to say, it was a long, exhausting day of bustles and dropped-waists and scoop-necks. I think Hikle now knows more about the various ruches, sweetheart necklines, basque waistlines, and a bunch of other terms that I don't even know, than I think any man should ever need to know. He was such a trooper! Fortunately, there was wireless internet available at the places we went to so he could look up some of the terminology & spelling for our notes (and to post messages on people's myspace pages, apparently). The only thing missing were photos, which are apprently not permitted at these places.

Three stops and about 20 gowns later, we made a quick stop before heading to our final destination, Blue Bridal Couture. Unfortunately, there wasn't much "bridal" or "couture" about this place. Hikle jokingly wondered if it would be like the Hot Topic of bridal stores. Well, unfortunately, it was a bit of a prophecy. It was a pretty scary place with cheap, poorly made "gowns" cookie-cut from the same generic template and florescent, neon bridal party dresses. To top things off, they wouldn't even validate our parking and we had to pay $7 to escape from the garage after less than 20 minutes. Oh well! That was the end of the day for us.

After our long, exhausting day, we went to another amazing place for dinner last night called Deluxe. Chisolm joined us this time. I had the most incredible corn soup, along with oyster shooters, and baby back ribs. I thanked everyone for all their help throughout the day and we all headed home.

In the meantime, Ketchup and Mustard have recently developed some sort of fungus so I've been treating them with aquarium salt and other remedies to nurse them back to health in between hosting friends and dress shopping. If they don't look much better, I think I will probably take them to the vet tomorrow.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to have such great friends and caring people in my life.

posted by Samm @ 8/06/2006 10:58:00 AM