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One of the first questions I ask my brides is if they’ve gotten their dress. It’s definitely a top milestone in wedding planning.
I dreamed about my wedding dress far before I ever met my now husband. I checked out bridal magazine and shamelessly stalked wedding photographers just to see the pictures of dresses.

When I got engaged I couldn’t wait to go with my mom to try on dresses.

Then all of my dreams came to a crashing halt with one sentence, “we don’t have anything for you here.”

I posted a little earlier on my Facebook page about the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch saying that he will never carry XL and XXL large sizes because he doesn’t want those people wearing his clothes. He cited wanting to specialize and only market to a certain group of people.

This article is especially interesting since I mentioned I was going to blog about my dress experience today.

Rewinding back to 6 years ago when 2 children hadn’t helped me add some pounds and I was a comfortable size 10. I had just gotten engaged and my mom and I were in the town I happen to live in now. We were just visiting then. We didn’t know where any bridal shops were, but we came upon one by chance and went in which is where the trouble started and the tears started rolling.

When I walked into this shop the owner immediately asked if she could help us and I said I was looking for a wedding dress. She immediately said with the ugliest tone, “we don’t have anything for you here.”

I wish I could say I just stood there shocked, but I didn’t. I said something. I told her I was a size 10 and then it just got worse.
“There is no way,” the lovely woman exclaims. “We don’t have anything in your size.”
I pull the tag out to show her, say a few more ugly things to her and run out bawling.

Seriously I totally understand what Julia Roberts felt like in Pretty Woman, except without the whole hooker thing.

And my message to Mr. Jeffries of Ambercrombie would be this…Those women in the store in Pretty Woman will never be the hero. Even if they specialize in the most beautiful clothing in the world to only those with the right look, they’ll never be more than the villian.

The heroes are those that have kindness in their heart and compassion in their words.
They are slow to anger and rich in love.
They don’t let money motivate them or a quest for fame and riches.

There has been a lot of talk about specializing and only working with clients that are right for you which I really do like, but you’ll never hear me exclude anyone because of who they are or what they look like. I specialize because of what I’m good at and what brings me life.
Making people feel like they are less than special is nothing I ever want to specialize in.

Maybe Mr. Jeffries and the owner of my first bridal shop are somehow related? BTW, she totally went out of business and I can’t imagine why.

And don’t worry guys, I ended up going to After 5 and Weddings in Bozeman, Montana where I worked with the sweetest girls in the world that made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world!

Here’s a picture of me the first time I tried on my dress :) (totally bad pic too, sorry)