Weddingbee Blog

…continued from here and here.

(Mr. Magnolia, you don’t want to read this one!)

Bright and early the next morning, my Maid of Honor joined us for the last two stops on my list.

LaRaine’s Boutique is in the Virginia-Highland area of Atlanta, which is one of my favorite spots in the city. In terms of store setup, LaRaine’s almost a complete 180 from Saks and Priscilla of Boston — it’s packed full of dresses from many different designers, there’s not really much order to the vast selection, and I would describe the general vibe as more casual than sophisticated. However, the people who work there have a very welcoming attitude, and the shop reflects that. I immediately hit it off with my salesperson, Brooke, and we began to pull out dresses in every style imaginable for me to try on.I noticed my MOH scrunching her nose as I pulled one dress in particular off the rack. “I know, I know,” I told her. “I normally wouldn’t pick it out either, but it kind of reminds me of one that I really liked yesterday.” (I was talking about the Melissa Sweet dress.)

And predictably, that was the dress that ended up being my favorite from LaRaine’s:

(Moonlight Couture, as pictured on the LaRaine’s website)

No lace, no sash, not even an a-line shape…this dress was all ball gown, and I couldn’t figure out exactly why I liked it as much as I did. The store sample fit me perfectly, and all I knew was that I didn’t want to take it off.

***

However, we had one more store to visit, so we headed off to Kelly’s Closet in Candler Park. Kelly’s Closet is a lovely little boutique that carries designers that most other shops don’t, like Claire Pettibone and Amy Michelson.

I tried on some beautiful dresses that were completely different than anything else I had seen, but my experience with the staff was a little off. The salesperson that was helping me seemed to be great - she was very friendly and answered any questions that I had. But every time she clipped me into a dress, the owner of the shop would come up behind her and re-clip it. Each time she did this, she apologized to me, telling me that the girl who was helping me was new, and that she was still learning how to fit the dresses. Honestly, I thought she was doing a great job, and I made a point to say so.

This dress, by Renella DeFina, is the one I fell for at Kelly’s:

(See the lace? And the sash? I was all over this one as soon as I saw it!)

***

We left Kelly’s Closet and headed over to a Mexican restaurant to debrief and make some decisions — keep looking? Go back and see one (or more?) of these amazing dresses?

One round of margaritas down, and the decision was clear…

Back to LaRaine’s we went to see the Moonlight dress. It was the opposite of everything that I thought I wanted, but it was the one that looked the best on me. It was the one that I didn’t want to take off. It was the one that made me feel like a bride.

Per Mama Magnolia’s recommendation, we ordered it in white, put down the deposit that afternoon, and took some crappy camera phone pictures…

(a headless Miss Magnolia in the ivory sample - this dress definitely needs a big ol’ crinoline!)

(a terrible picture of the fabulous train)

I placed the order in February, the dress arrived in May, and I start my fittings next month with LaRaine’s in-house tailor, Topher…and I can’t wait!

Even though I had something completely different in mind when I started shopping, I kept an open mind and on my second day of searching, I found a beautiful dress that looks great on me. I truly think that I would have been happy in any of the four dresses I highlighted, but I think I made the best decision for me, style-wise and budget-wise. I know that compared to a lot of other brides, I had it easy…to find the dress on the first weekend you start looking is almost unheard of, but somehow I managed it, and I’ve never doubted my decision.

My advice is essentially an echo of what you would hear from just about every other bride out there — try on all kinds of different styles to see what looks good on you, keep an open mind, bring friends/family who you know will be honest with you. Despite my earlier hesitation, dress shopping ended up being a lot of fun…in fact, I would consider it to be one of my favorite parts of planning so far!

Thanks so much for reading these posts — and stay tuned for fitting pics in early November!