Just an observation:

If you're shopping for an outfit to wear to your cousin's wedding, and you're attending graduate school two nights a week and working for a nonprofit organization and living with your parents to save on rent, and you wander into an area with really nice suits and dresses, and you spot a sign that states in tastefully understated type that spending $500 will get you an additional 20% off but that spending $750 will get 25% or more off...

... you're in the wrong part of the mall.

I went to Sears. I picked out three outfits. With actual dresses involved - I almost never wear skirts voluntarily, although I'm told I have the legs for 'em. I tried the first outfit on and it was Good. I asked the woman in the dressing room with me, the old lady at the counter, and one of the women in my office if I could get away with the outfit at a wedding. The response was almost universally in the 'oh yeah' category, save for the customer in the dressing room who suggested I get a shiny for a necklace and possibly another to break up the line of the dress at the waist in case I took off the long jacket that went with it. I spent $49.99, plus the price of pantyhose.

Take that, whoever you were at the expensive shop within Bloomingdale's.