A Million Bucks $$$

Now I always here stories about people trying on that one dress and feeling like a movie star but I had never really had that happen to me until today. It may be a mixture of all the cold medication I am on which just made the experience all the more surreal. My sister and I have had dresses made by a lady here in Thailand. Her company is called Pauljina and she does amazing work. Two of my dresses that I own are custom designed by her. They make me feel like a princess when I wear them but today it was different.

Mina and I walked into the shop with our designs in hand. Our first request was simple, a black pencil skirt. You would be surprised how hard it is to find one that is actually to the knee and decently priced. Once we had that all squared away we had Pauljina price out a few other dresses. I had brought in some pictures that I had found of beautiful traditional Thai dresses. After being a bit taken aback by how expensive it would be to get one made we decided to just look around the shop. She has several dresses on display that are either being made for people or are being sold. Mina found a fun dress that she's going to wear to the December dance. I won't spoil what it looks like though but she will look amazing!

My mom pulled out this one dress that was stunning. It has black lace sleeves nearly to the wrist overlayed a champagne satin fabric. We thought it was beautiful and vintage looking. Immediately I thought of Pride and Prejudice. Probably cause I am reading that book right now but seriously it looks like something similar that they would wear. We didn't think much of it though because after looking at the price we moved on. It wasn't outrageous but we weren't really looking to buy a new dress. Pauljina had noticed Mina admiring her soon to be stunner dress and told us that they were on sale for only 1000 baht. For those of you not familiar with the conversion of baht to dollar it is about 30 baht to 1 US dollar. 1000 baht is approximately 30 dollars. When we found this out you can imagine the pandemonium that occurred. Through squeals of excitement we made Mina try it on. She protested at first claiming it wouldn't fit or look good on her. Low and Behold she looked amazing! With a few alterations to it she will be quite the catch. ;-)

Gathering up the courage we asked about the dress my Mom and I had been eyeing. It too was on sale for about 1500 Baht or 50 US dollars. At that moment my jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Something that elegant for that price? You're kidding right? Racing across the room I snatched the dress off the rack and headed to the dressing room. As I emerged from the drapes I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Is that me? No... couldn't be! It fit perfectly! Minus a few little alterations here and there (it has to be taken in a few notches) it was flawless. The delicate black lace overlay combined with the rich champagne gold satin made me feel sophisticated. Before my eyes a red carpet appeared and I pranced down it. Yes, it was as if this dress had been tailor made for me. When it is finished it really will be! I'm still in shock from the amazing deal we got on the dress in the first place. It easily could be worth over $200 in the U.S. Guess this means I will just have to go to a few of the fancy dances at BYU :) Now I just need to find a date.....

Random Fact: The term "OXYMORON" is itself an oxymoron because oxy means sharp and moron means dull.