The Running of the Brides

As many of you know, I was waiting to buy a wedding gown at the Running of the Brides at Filene's Basement. Or, as Angel likes to call it, Pandemonium 2009. Here's a "play-by-play" recount of those 18 hours....

Stephanie, Angel, and I left Columbus around 7:00 PM Thursday and headed toward Atlanta. We arrived at Filene's around 9:00 PM and set up camp. Our camp consisted of camping chairs, sleeping bags, and blankets...After about 30 minutes of sitting we realized we should get some sleep, so Angel devised a plan to setting up the sleeping bags etc...There were probably about 100 people in line when we got there.

Now, keep in mind, sleeping on the sidewalks in Buckhead was in no-way glamorous. It was about 40 degrees outside, with an occasional gust of wind. We were kept awake most of the night by some obnoxious jerk who liked to sing loudly, and yell random things throughout the night...not sure how much Jack Daniels, he drank, but I'm sure it was quite a bit. When it was time to go in, he held onto Angel's backpack, so she was able to shove him around a little bit as payback (but it still wasn't enough!) We slept off and on, but by about 5:00 security was getting everyone up and had us move our stuff to the car so we could start getting in a more organized line.

My mom and aunt joined us in line around 7:00 AM Friday morning, and by this time, the line grew to about 1,500 and wrapped around the building and into the parking garage.

At 8:00 they started the countdown and we quickly ran in and grabbed as many dresses as we could.

The store had over 2,300 dresses...

It only took 60 seconds and the racks were stripped bare.

Then, the swapping began....around 9:00 I was getting frustrated, so we went to Target for a bit to devise a new plan and grab a coke.

(can you tell at this point, they had about "had it" with me!)

When we went back, the dresses were getting back to the racks, so we went through them again.

If you look toward the bottom left of this next picture, you can see mom and Angel.

We had about 10 and found some girls who were about my size, so we all started trading...well, long story short...I HAVE A DRESS THAT I LOVE! Don't ask what it looks like...you'll have to come to the wedding to find out...but, I will say, it looks like a "Mercer" dress. Woohoo!

I would recommend this sale to anyone...while I don't think it's necessary to camp out, it added to the experience! By the way, check out our outfits...everyone at the "running" loved them!