Weddingbee Blog

Is he gone? Okay, good. Let’s talk dresses.

Now, before I get started, I just want to acknowledge that a good deal of you have probably already seen my dress. I was pretty active on the boards before I became a bee, and I plastered my dress all over the place. So, if you’ve seen it already, just pretend like you haven’t.

I’m going to be honest with you here. In the entirety of my wedding dress shopping, I never once visited Maggie Sottero’s website. Nor did I visit Bill Levkoff’s, Vera Wang’s, or Alfred Angelo’s. Where did I look? David’s Bridal. That’s it. I had never even HEARD of designers like Christos until I fell head over heels for Miss Cowboy Boot‘s (extremely over my budget but painfully gorgeous) dress.

You may be saying “Why in the world would you only look at David’s Bridal? Their dresses are ugly! And bad quality! They’re the Wal-Mart of the bridal world!” But, I was never really all that immersed in the “bridal world” before I got engaged, and quite frankly, how “cheap” or “Wal-Martish” my dress was didn’t really matter to me. I knew that if I looked at those other (truly amazing and talented) designers, I’d be sorely disappointed, because I could never afford their dresses.

Now, I do know that some of those places have dresses that would be well within my budget, but you have to understand a small feat I had: I didn’t know what my budget was! You see, I have this theory that Mom Cardigan is allergic to budgets. She hates them. She won’t give me one – for anything! She says “I don’t want to tell you a specific number, because what if you find something that you love that’s just a little more? Just tell me what it costs, and I’ll tell you if that’s okay.” It’s a sweet attitude for her to have, but sometimes it makes me want to scream a little bit. So, I knew it would be pointless to ask her what budget I should stay within. All I knew is that David’s Bridal was the easiest, cheapest option I could find, and I knew that if I limited myself to searching there only, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Now, let me tell you, when I say I researched at David’s Bridal, I mean that I looked at their website almost daily. I had almost all of their dresses completely memorized. I pored over them again and again, imagining myself in each one, and counting down the days until I didn’t feel like it was completely ridiculous to go dress shopping (if you’ll remember, I have a 16 month engagement. That’s a little early to start shopping!).

With all of my obsessive website stalking, I found a dress that I loved, and I decided right then and there it was “the one”. I hadn’t seen it in person. I hadn’t tried it on. But I loved it – it was exactly what I wanted, and I couldn’t wait any longer to try it on. But, I still wanted to at least have the dress shopping experience, so about a month into our engagement (patience is NOT a virtue I possess), I finally gave in and booked an appointment at David’s Bridal. I was so excited I could barely contain it!

On the morning of my appointment at David’s Bridal, I thought my head was going to completely explode from excitement. I carefully picked out the outfit that I thought would be easiest to change in and out of (Note: I failed. I picked the worst outfit ever), and remembered to wear a strapless bra. I practically bounded into my nearest David’s Bridal with Sister Cardy in tow, and drug her over to the mannequin that had the dress I had been drooling over. I cooed over it while I waited for someone to acknowledge that I was there, and I patiently waited for a consultant once I told them I had an appointment.

And, can I be frank with you for a minute? I was absolutely terrified that I would have a horrible consultant. I have heard some HORROR stories about the consultants at David’s Bridal, and I was so nervous that the person I got would tell me I look fat, or try to talk me into buying a million different things. But, I couldn’t have been more wrong. My consultant was WONDERFUL and I absolutely loved her!

When my consultant came over, I immediately shoved a catalog into her hand with about 25 pages folded down. I mean, they asked me to fold down the pages of some that I liked. Did I go overboard? Maybe a little. But, I digress. I told her that I was basically open to trying on ANYTHING and that I just couldn’t wait to get in some dresses!

I apologize in advance for my crazy, unbrushed hair. For some reason, I have an aversion to brushing it sometimes. I was feeling lazy that day. I’m not going to tell you which one was the one that I loved online, but it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Also, I don’t remember the dress numbers from all of these, so if you’re curious about any of them just ask and I’ll do some detective work.

This was the first one I tried on, and I really really liked it. It was definitely NOT what I was expecting to like, but I was very excited about it. Part of that may have something to do with the fact that it was the first wedding dress I ever put on… ever. However, once we got back outside and started looking at the photos, Sister Cardy and I both agreed that the dress didn’t look nearly as good in photos as it did in person, which was a big negative for me.

Next up:

Please excuse the awkwardly placed veil. This was the one time my consultant actually pushed anything on me (she actually put it on me while I was wearing the other dress and then put it back on for this one), and I was very quick to get her to back down on it, so it wasn’t a huge deal. This one definitely made me feel like a bride. It was a much softer material than the first dress, and I felt beautiful in it! The one downside to this dress was that there is no sweetheart neckline, which I kind of wanted.

Love. This. Dress. I am a huge fan of the sweetheart neckline on it! And surprisingly, I liked the beading and details on it a lot, which I totally didn’t think I would!

This was one of the dresses that I had really liked online. Can you tell by my face that I was a bit disappointed? First of all, the pattern on the lace was a bit weird for me. In the photos it didn’t look so… stripy. And, I totally didn’t feel like a bride in this dress. I felt beautiful, because it truly is a gorgeous dress, but I did not feel like a bride. At all. Which made me pretty sad.

Next, my consultant brought out a brand new dress that wasn’t available online yet. I had never seen it before, but apparently it was supposed to be this really amazing dress. So I figured, what the hell, I’ll try it on.

Okay, see, I’m not much of a ruffles girl to begin with, and that dress has a lot of ruffles. It really is a pretty dress, but not my style at all. Oh, and notice those ruffles right around the boob area? For some reason, I couldn’t stop playing with them. I’ve always like the feeling of ruffly stuff on my fingers, and so I joked with Sister Cardy that if I got this dress people would think I was crazy ’cause I’d be touching my boobs the whole night at the wedding. Not a cute look.

Next up, the dress that the beautiful Mrs. Cheese wore:

Let me just say that I was absolutely in love with this dress. So! Gorgeous! The one and only thing I didn’t like about it was that you could see where the dress attached to the bigger part. Hard to explain, but right around my knees there was a horizontal seam that really bugged me for some reason.

And, lastly:

I was a big fan of this one. I loved the simplicity of it!

So – you’ve seen all of the dresses I tried on in my first dress shopping excursion! Honestly, once I left I already had a dress that I couldn’t get out of my head. I knew which one was mine. And surprisingly enough, it was the same one that I had decided I loved online!

Even though I was pretty set in the dress I wanted, my mom still hadn’t seen it, and she still wanted to go on at least one outing with me. So, we made plans to hit up a few stores in College Station when she came up for my birthday, and we decided we’d go from there. I don’t have any of the photos from that trip, but I promise you’re not missing out on anything special.

Which one do you think was my favorite? Which one is YOUR favorite? (Oh, and if you’ve already seen my dress over on the boards, don’t spoil the fun!!)