Monday, May 21, 2012

Tying the Knot: Wedding Dress Shopping pt2

Dress Shopping Day #1: Friday continued

If you've forgotten from PART 1, I was convinced by my consultant, Miranda, to try on a dress she picked out for me and thought would be a perfect fit for my body type. She knew it wasn't something I would have picked out for myself but I was down for anything at that point. And remember, there was already a dress that I loved, we'll call it DressA.

I slipped into it, she zipped it up and I turned to look in the mirror that was in the dressing room. Immediately I felt "it"; a bit hot, like my heart started beating louder, and as cliche as it sounds, almost like I couldn't take in a full breathe. All I could manage to say at that point was "huh....?" because I was almost in shock that this dress was nothing like the idea I had in my head but took me by such surprise.

I went to show my family and I can't remember exactly what was said but that it was all positive things. It fit me almost perfectly, was so unique and so different than the other dresses I had tried on. But I could sense my family sensing my hesitation. I was fighting a battle between "what I thought I wanted" and "what I was completely loving". This dress was suddenly and shockingly in the running, as DressB.

We started addressing pros and cons of both dresses. I put on a veil and a hair piece with this dress for comparisons to DressA. I looked in the mirror from the front, the back, both sides. I looked at pictures of myself wearing both. My MOH tried on a bridesmaid dress they had there in navy to stand next to me wearing both dresses. We even tried to trick my mind by having me look in the mirror in DressB, close my eyes while DressA was held up and then open my eyes.

Finally Miranda suggested I walk to a different part of the store to a different set of mirrors to see myself walk in DressB. As she'd been doing the whole time, Miranda perfectly timed my walk across the store with my mom following me so that we could have a moment to ourselves. I loved having everyone there with me that day but there's something about having your mom there that tops everything else. I turned to look at her with tears in my eyes to realize that she was crying too. She gave me a huge, huge hug, told me how beautiful I looked and I thought to myself, "is this the 'moment' I was missing earlier?"

At this point it was getting close to the end of our appointment so I went and put my regular clothes back on and said I needed some time to think about it all. I was so torn between these two dresses! My dream dress and an amazing surprise dress. Miranda even asked if I had other appointments set up and was surprisingly happy when I said yes. So we gathered our things and headed to the next appointment.

____________________________________________________

Because of budget and my overall thrifty-ness I knew I would have to look at David's Bridal while searching for my perfect dress so this was the second place on our list for the weekend. I knew ahead of time that they can have great prices, lots to choose from in a variety of styles, and discounts for bridesmaids if I purchase my dress through them. I was a little unimpressed by the beginning of our appointment and the seeming chaos that was inside the store. We were just set to look through the dresses ourselves (but not pull any) without any sort of guidance even before we met with our consultant. We wandered around finding a handful of options and finally met with our consultant.

Just like before, I was able to tell her things I did and didn't like and got assigned a room to start trying things on. She was very friendly and started bringing in dresses for me to try on. Some were automatic no's and there were a few styles that I hadn't tried on before. After about five dresses there was one that was definitely a consideration. But it wasn't perfect. I hated the very bottom edge of the dress, it was almost as if someone had sewed a thin strip of tulle around the edge of the dress and it simply just didn't work for my taste.

We met with someone from alterations who was able to pin the edge under and assured us that it was not a problem and could definitely be changed. I was a little leary about needing to change something like that but otherwise the dress was everything I had said I wanted. There weren't really any other good options to consider at this point from here so we started to pack up and I changed clothes. Since there was still DressA and DressB from before I said I needed to think about things before I made a decision. Then my consultant dropped the bombshell. This dress, DressC, had been discontinued and the dress that was hanging in my fitting room was literally the last one in my size of this style! They could hold it for the day but that was it. I was going to have to make a decision about DressC fast! By this time I was confused and everyone was done for the day.

The day had been hijacked by the start March Madness for these two ladies!

We left and my mom and I drove home. We talked and talked about all three dresses and eventually ruled out DressC. DressA and DressB were regularly more expensive (which I was nervous about) but once all the additional alterations costs were added to DressC to make it perfect it wasn't worth it in the end.

There was one more appointment at a different bridal boutique set up for the next day so we called it quits for the night, I went to dinner with J's family, and we would see what the next day would bring.

PART 3 is coming soon!

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