My good friend Jaime is getting married in Oct and I'm a bridesmaid. So, we went up to go shopping for a bridesmaid dress. We were on the hunt for a gold dress for the bridesmaids (4 of us) and a burgundy dress for the maid of honor.
The first stop was Weekend Warehouse. It's known for having formal dresses for cheap (I'd gotten a bridesmaid dress there a few years ago and can vouch for it's affordability!). When all of us could finally agree on a style, we discovered that it didn't come in burgundy. Strike #1.
The second stop was Suzanne's Bridal. This is also the location where Jaime got her bridal gown and we would get 10% off if we purchased our dresses there. We tried on a few and found one that at least a majority of us liked. But it was kind of pricey....even after the discount. So, we took the number down in case we couldn't find anything else. Strike #2.
On a whim, we decided that maybe we can try JC Penney. They have a catalog and maybe we can find something that's a little more in our price range. Only, we get there and they have ZERO gold dresses. The catalog was maybe a page long of formal dresses and the racks had zilch. While we were wandering wondering what to do next, a few of us were admiring a whole section of black cocktail dresses that were all on sale. Too bad we weren't wearing black! After some debate (mainly about how gold isn't a very flattering color), we decided that maybe we could wear black! Off we went to the dressing room. And ALL 5 of us actually loved the same dress!! Score!! We decided that instead, we can wear the black dresses, add gold fabric over the waistband for the bridesmaids and add burgundy fabric to the maid of honor and still tie in with Jaime's color scheme. Match that with gold and burgundy shoes and voila. The best part.....the dresses were $45 each! Can't beat that price! The made of honor's mom is a seamstress so she's going to add the fabric for us, and then when the wedding is over, we can remove the fabric and have a simple black dress in our wardrobe.
Here's the dress style. Isn't it cute?
After a very full day of shopping, we decided to celebrate - Chico style! We went bar hopping!!!
Man, there are a ton of new bars that weren't there when I was there: Banshee's, Johnny's, etc. But then there were the old hang outs too: The Bear, La Salles, Joe's, etc.
Behold. The Bloody Joe. One of my staples. (Although they now put a weird handful of veggies on top instead of the coveted green olives and green beans. Who the hell decided to change that?!)
The great thing about Chico is that no matter where you go, you run into someone you know. After several years of not living there, I STILL ran into someone I know!! The guy in the middle is Frankie. I've known him nearly my whole life. I tutored him and our parents were friends. We practically grew up together. Despite that he's taller than me and is now a college graduate, I'll always know him as the quite kid with the loud Italian family!
Chico is also known for cheap drinks. Where else can you get 10 shots of kamakaze for $20?!
And then of course, there's the cab ride home with 12 people piled in a van with a pit stop to the liquor store along the way. Oh, and the mini bonfire in the backyard, music blaring, people conversing until the wee hours of the morning. We had a great time!
But the next morning wasn't too fun. We got up early (read: 3 to 4 hrs of sleep) so that we could visit with our other Chico friends: the Hutsell's. We took a walk along the river by their house, ate fresh peaches and apricots from the overloaded trees along the way and threw rocks in the river to watch the fish scatter. We only visited for a couple of hours.....long enough to know that we don't visit with then nearly enough. Oh how I miss our group game nights of Phase 10!!!
The drive home was excruciatingly long. We stopped for lunch and a heavy dose of caffeine along the way, hoping that we wouldn't fall asleep. Which we did immediately after we parked the car in the garage.
1 comment:
I LOVE Chiiiiic-oooooooo!
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