Ashli got engaged to Mackenzie Brown on Christmas Eve, 2008. We’ve sort of been looking at wedding dresses the past few months, but since the wedding isn’t until August 2009, we didn’t think we needed to be in any big hurry. Finally in June we got serious about finding a dress. Ashli and I went shopping on a few different occasions, and she liked a dress at Alysse’s Bridal, but I didn’t really love it. My friend Missy told me about a great dress shop in Salt Lake, and we got a list of places when we went to the Bridal Fair at Provo High School. We wanted her aunts and cousins to be involved in finding the dress, so we planned to go on Saturday, June 13, 2009 and find one. Tami and her family were staying with us the weekend of June 5-6, so Brooklyn and I made sashes for the people who would be dress shopping with us. “Mother of the Bride”, “Cousin of the Bride”, “Sister of the Groom”, etc.
Ashli and I knew that dress shopping can be a long day, so we decided to go to Salt Lake a few days early and try on dresses, hoping to narrow it down to a few choices before everyone gathered on Saturday. We started at Alysse’s in American Fork, where she tried on lots of dresses and ended up liking the same one she had tried on before. We had them hold that one for Saturday, then went to Salt Lake. We went to SO many stores, and found absolutely NOTHING. It was SO discouraging! Our last stop was at Latter Day Bride in the Gateway Mall. It had been a long day and we weren’t very hopeful, but when we got there, they pulled a few dresses for us. Ashli tried on ONE dress and fell in love with it. It was totally her. And it’s just like they said it would be. I didn’t care what the price tag said. She looked like a princess and I wanted to buy her that dress. But we still had the plan for everyone to shop with us on the 13th.
We still wanted everyone to be involved in the shopping, so we decided to have everyone go online at Latter Day Bride and vote for their favorite. Then we planned to have Ashli try on those dresses on Saturday, have a little prize to give the winner. We’re only like six or eight weeks out from the wedding, so when we got there on Saturday, they only pulled dresses that are in stock at the manufacturer. That narrowed the choices down considerably. Kurt and Amy both liked Luella, Tami and Elizabeth liked Francesca, Brooklyn liked Newport, Mikayla liked Nico, Paul and Michelle liked Morlotti., Mikkell, Sunshine, Crissa and Tawni all liked Vettori. None of those were in stock. So she tried on Oakely (Joey’s choice), Tacoma (Tyler LOVED this dress! Ashli felt so bad that it wasn’t her favorite), Lakewood (Tina’s choice), Santa Cruz (Mackenzie’s choice) and a few others from her list on Monday that she didn’t get to, including a beautiful dress called Ontario.
Amy and Makayla liked the Ontario. In the end, it came down to the one she had loved on Monday and the Ontario. She tried them both on several times, and had Kylie try on one of them while Ash tried on the other one, so she could see them side by side. When she put the Monday dress on one last time, she said “This is it”. I knew Monday that it was, but the whole process was so much fun. I loved having everyone involved in getting her Cinderella ball gown. I’m not putting up pictures of her in any of the dresses, because I don’t want Kenz to see her in ANY wedding dress before the wedding, and I’m not posting the name of the one she chose yet.
Mackenzie was such a good sport all day. He wore a blindfold every time she came out of the dressing room so he wouldn’t see her in any of the dresses.
We had planned on this whole thing being a “girls’ day” until I watched a show on TLC called “Say Yes to the Dress”. There was a big Greek family on that show, all at a shop with the bride trying on dresses. Brothers, sisters, Mom, Dad. And when she found “the” dress, Mom was worried about the price. And Dad said “We’ll get the dress”. Awe… I decided then to invite the men along, particularly Kurt. This is his only daughter and I knew he’d love to see her in her dresses and be part of the day.
Zack and Tyler were convinced to come along, too. It didn’t take much convincing for Ty, but Zack was not thrilled to be there.
Later we felt bad that we hadn’t invited Mack’s dad, Mike, too. He was home with Mack’s little brother Dallin, who has Cerebral Palsy, but they could have both been there. Amy married Mike when Mack was 9 years old. His Mom had died of cancer a few days before Mack turned 4 years old, so he spent a lot of time with his Grandma in Grantsville. When she passed away, too, Amy was such a blessing in Mack’s life. She is so good to him and everyone who knows them is so grateful that she came into both Mike and Mack’s lives when she did. I love her for coming to Salt Lake that day to be with us, especially since Mack and Ashli were the only two people she even knew. She’d never even met the rest of the crowd, and we can be a bit overwhelming when we sisters get together!
Tina and Zack had stopped at the Scottish Festival at Thanksgiving Point on the way up to Salt Lake that day, so we gave sashes to those who couldn’t make it to the dress shop later. Jade, Michelle, Willow and cousin Mikayla, not to be confused with Mack’s sister Makayla. Mik and Mak. They even look a bit alike. Jade was as thrilled with her little shiny sash as Zack was to be in a bridal shop, but they were both good sports about the whole thing.
In the end, we gave the prize pack to Makayla, since Ashli stuck with her original choice of dress and didn’t pick any of the ones that people voted for beforehand. She got a “Friends” wedding DVD, a bag of wedding mints, “hot tamales” and a big candy ring. Mack and Ashli took us all out to eat afterwards, but I don’t think they realized how much it would cost, so Kurt slipped Ashli some extra cash to help with the meal. It was a wonderful day and we’ll never forget it.
Perhaps the greatest show of support for Ashli came from Tami, Tawni and Brooklyn. There was a HUGE accident which closed I-80 that morning. So bad, in fact, that our friend Dave Nugent missed his father’s funeral because of the road closure. But Tami and Tawni were determined to get to Salt Lake, so they went over Butterfield Canyon in a pouring rainstorm. On the way over the mountain, Tami almost got in a collision with another vehicle, which ended up being Dave and Brooklyn. They had been in Ephraim watching Kylie at her basketball camp and they were headed back to Tooele. Brooklyn was thrilled to get out of Dave’s car and hop in with Tami, since she would have missed the dress shopping altogether. (And she’s the one who did the leg work on the sashes!) Ashli had been working in Ephraim that morning, so Kylie was with her. It meant a lot to all of us that they all went to such trouble to be there.