Bridesmaid Dress Fiasco

My sister-in-law's wedding has finally arrived. We fly out to California bright and early Thursday morning for her nuptials on Thursday night. We arrive in California around 3:30 pm and need to be on the beach for pictures (which I believe is an hour away) at 4:30 pm. We are obviously cutting it real close. Let's hope we aren't delayed and the weather is perfect. For an idea on why we can't fly out on Wednesday, you can read a guest post I wrote a while back here.

So back in December when SIL asked me to be in the wedding, she sent me a link to a dress at David's Bridal. However, she told me not to order anything yet because she wasn't sure if those were the dresses she really wanted.

Cut to May.

I emailed her asking if she had decided on a dress since the wedding was fast approaching. She said she would contact her MOH and see if the original dresses were still available. Of course, they weren't. She then said she would contact me again to let me know what the plan was. I didn't hear from her for a while, and then a couple weeks ago she said we all should just try to find a light yellow dress. I looked around, but couldn't find anything, so I let her know that there were some other dress styles at David's Bridal in the original light yellow color. Again, a week or so goes by. She then contacts me last week to tell me that I should go and buy this dress:I call David's Bridal to set up an appointment and make one for this past Thursday. I show up at the store, thinking that they will have racks and racks of the dresses in many colors and styles, when in fact that is not how David's Bridal works. They have dresses in various colors and styles and then you order what you would like. Now that I think of it I suppose it is just like any other bridal salon, but my SIL gave me the impression that I would be able to go buy the dress at the store.

Of course, they don't have the dress in the right color in my size. The saleslady then calls around to see if the dress is available in any other stores in the US and if it can be shipped ASAP. No luck. I call my SIL frantically asking what to do, and she gives me some more dress styles that she likes. I try them on to figure out which size I need (their sizing varies a lot between dress styles) and we finally find that the dress below is available at a store in Woodbridge, VA in the style, size, and color needed (or so I thought). I pay for the dress at the original store and agree to pick it up at the Woodbridge store today, since the store is about an hour away from where we live.

So today we venture down to Woodbridge and when they bring out the dress, it is not the dress I thought I ordered, nor was it the size that fit me in that dress (does that make sense?).

Cue tears.

Apparently the saleslady at the original store gave the saleslady at the Woodbridge store the wrong style number and the size for the other dress. UGGGGGHHH. So we search the store for any dresses in the color and we find three that could potentially work. I try them on and luckily one of them fits. So now I will be wearing this dress on Thursday:
The dress is actually a lot cuter in person and resembles the cotton cady dresses from J. Crew. But OMG, could this have been any more of a hassle?!?

ETA: I must thank the helpful manager at the Woodbridge store. She allowed me to return the first dress even though it was a final sale and helped to calm me down and find something that could work.