Wedding Post #1 - Dress Saga

Ah, and I thought the dress saga was over in St. Louis when I picked up my dress! Oh no - that would be WAY too easy. So it goes like this:
I picked up the larger sized dress in STL prepared to take it in Monday to be altered. We get to the alteration place on Monday and talk with the person who assured us he could do it in a week - well, he lied - or at least wasn't 100% honest. He took one look at the dress and basically said "no frikin' way." At that point Cody's mom (my "Bonus Mom") and I had a dress too big and no idea what to do. So we did the only thing I knew how - run to family. My aunt is an insanely good seamstress so naturally we ran to her. At 9 am we show up at her door and shoved the dress in her face and begged for her to tell us if it was possible to hem it and take it in. She reassured me that it would be possible, just not easy. That made me feel better. So once David's opened we ran there to see if we could find ourselves an angel. We found one. Apparently Bonus Mom's boss has a friend/seamstress that works there and she just happened to be there on Monday (she normally does not work Monday's). She was fantastic. She had me put on the dress and started pinning away. The dress was unzipped half way down my back and she had it all pinned and I was convinced it would never zip the way she had it pinned - not only did it zip but it was perfect. She even gave us two bustle options! So we left the dress with her Monday morning, having complete confidence in her abilities.
And she didn't let us down one bit. We went back on Thursday for a "fitting" (for those who don't know most people have their final fitting months before their wedding - mine was less the 48 hours away). She had the dress hemmed, bustled and taken in, but hadn't finished the details. It was perfect. It was the closest I came to crying over a dress this entire process (but I was crying a lot that day so that might have played a factor too). :) It fit wonderfully. She basically took a huge dress that was ackward on and remade the entire thing - she took in a ton of room from the top all the way through my hips and made it work for my body - she was a miracle worker. Then Friday Melanie and I went to pick it up. It was perfect. She then taught Melanie how to do the bustle as well (it was a VERY complicated bustle - 6 ties for the bottom bustle and a button for the top layer) - her and Bonus Mom ended up having to teach everyone else by the end of the wedding. :) So Friday around 2 pm - about 26 hours before my wedding - I finally had a perfect wedding dress!!!
Of course it was great at the wedding - perfect actually for me - at this point I could care less if anyone else liked it our not. :) At the reception I pretty much tore the dress apart. :) As I think Bonus Mom said or maybe it was someone else, the sign of a good wedding is how messed up the bride's dress gets. Mine was good then. I ended up with blue icing on it from the Gator grooms cake and at some point someone (or me) stepped on the bustle, busting the button. My mom then tied the bustle up with a string (there's a picture on picasaweb of her doing this - it's the one of me with my butt in her face) from the favors. This lasted a little while but it tore off eventually so I just carried the train over my arm.
Today I took the dress to the cleaners to get it pressed and cleaned (I think I might wear it to the STL party so I didn't get it preserved). I think the cleaning and alterations together cost more then the dress - not kidding. It was worth it. I could have done without some of the dress drama, but in the end I loved the dress I wore and I had a great time in it.