Finding the Dress:Part 1

A week ago today, I was in rough shape. Things at my job have been difficult, I was feeling a lot of wedding and non-wedding related stress, and it just wasn't pretty. I was trying to narrow down the bridesmaids options, as the sooner we can get those figured out the earlier we can watch for sales so the girls don't have to sell any organs. I drove over to one of the bridal shops in our town to look at swatches for the bridesmaids dresses, to see if the designers they carried actually had anything in the colors I liked.

As often happens at bridal shops, I walked in the door and was blinded by a sea of white and sparkles. Except this time, I sighed in a, oh aren't those pretty sort of way. And since our last trip had left me with a pretty solid idea of what I was looking for, I decided to ask if they had time for me to try on some gowns. My goal was to find maybe not the exact dress but definitely one or two stores that had what I was looking for, so when my mom comes out to visit in the fall we could actually buy something.

The owner of the store helped me, and after describing my last dress experience and what I was looking for, let me walk through the racks on my own. They were starting a large sale to clear stock for the fall, and so I went through those dresses first. I took one pass down the line, and actually pulled the same dress twice, once in ivory and once in blush. It was exactly what I'd had in mind. Fit and flare, soft skirt, sweetheart neckline, and an un-obnoxious train. I put the blush back, added the ivory to the rack and kept walking.

There wasn't anything else  that really jumped out and said "pick me" so I walked back along the line one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything. I grabbed a few more gowns in a similar style, plus one that was a silk a-line, but had a fun feature that MaidoH A and I had been laughing about in our first store.

I headed down to the dressing room where the owner helped me into the gowns. I think she was impressed by how quickly I could decide, but I figured there was no reason to doddle once I'd figured out it wasn't "my" dress. Slowly we made it through the stack, discarding left and right, even the twice pulled dress from the sale rack. The next dress was a gorgeous soft netting, almost a mermaid with a sweetheart neckline and beading along the bottom of the bodice, rather than in the middle or the top.

Imagine this, but with bling along the top of the skirt. via Dress for the Wedding

I put it on, goose-stepped out to the mirror, and paused. It was gorgeous. It actually gave me a shape. There was little obnoxious train to speak of. When she added a sparkly belt and a veil, I thought, alright I need my mom to come see this. I stayed and admired the fact that I actually had shape for awhile, before shuffling back to the dressing room. I say shuffling because the bodice/skirt junction was mid-thigh, and made it a little tricky to take a full step. Not ideal, but it looked good.

I decided, for the sake of the argument, to try on the last two dresses that I'd pulled; the a-line silk with the fun detail, and a gorgeous beaded gown in silver. Neither of them was a serious contender after the last dress, but I figured if I was still thinking about it after trying on others, that was a good sign.

I put on the a-line, walked out, and froze. All of the sudden I had a picture in my head, one of the photos I've seen of our venue, from the back of the aisle looking up towards the groom. I stepped up onto the little box, and just stared for awhile. It was completely different than what I'd expected. The color is different, the silhouette, the skirt, all of it. Not what I thought I was looking for at all. I thought I'd wanted the princess on bottom slightly sexy on top fit and flare, and yet, in this dress, I felt like me. Then she added a veil that matched, and I felt something click. And oh yeah. Didn't hurt that it is a normally $3,000+ dress on sale this week only for $500. No pressure, right?

I stared for a long time before walking back to the dressing room. I tried on the silver gown. Gorgeous, but more Hollywood than wedding. I put back on the fit and flare. I still liked it. I looked awesome in it. I knew I had a few phone calls to make. We wrote down all of the numbers for the gowns and veils, and I walked out the door.