Weddingbee Blog

So…we had a wedding-dress emergency, so to speak. I had found a dress I really liked, I had put it on hold, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to go dress shopping with my mom. It was really important to me that we have that opportunity together, yet I also didn’t want to miss out on the amazing dress I found. There was no way that I could keep the dress on hold long enough for my mom’s scheduled trip out to Calgary several weeks later.

My mom also wanted a chance to go dress shopping, and luckily she and Dad were able to make the seven-hour drive out to Calgary the next weekend. I didn’t want to just show her the one dress, so I took Friday afternoon off of work so we could pop by a few other bridal salons. We started off at Ethos Bridal. We walked in without an appointment, and I had an amazing consultant all to myself. She let us peruse the dresses and pull some, plus she grabbed some dresses herself. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures, as we weren’t allowed to take pictures of gowns we didn’t purchase. I tried on a ton of gowns, but ultimately there wasn’t anything that I liked as much as the dress in Airdrie, so we moved on as soon as our parking expired.

From there we went to Belezza Bridals. Another very different shopping experience! The store was run by a little European lady. I showed her my pictures, she let me pull out some dresses I liked, and then it was time to get dressed up. I could tell if she didn’t like a dress that much, as she wouldn’t do it up nearly as well as the dresses she really liked. There was one gown that was completely different from anything I had tried on. It was an oyster coloured satin with some major pick ups, a bit of pleating in the front, a little bit of bling, and some rosettes. There were some embellishments hiding underneath the pick ups in places. It was somewhat similar to this Maggie Sottero.

The Allysa from Maggie Sottero

The consultant really tried to push me into this dress, telling me how great I looked in it and dismissing all of the other dresses I had tried on. She thought she would seal the deal if she grabbed a veil.

Oh my gosh, I was about to get jacked up!

Except I don’t want to wear a veil! Instead I stood in front of the mirror, looking at my reflection and, while I thought I looked good, I did not feel like me. At all. It felt like the dress wore me instead of me wearing the dress.

So…it was off to Airdrie and back to my favourite dress! After spending the afternoon with my mom and trying on dresses, I knew the one I had found with my girls was my dress. Of course my mom really liked it, too! I’m so glad we were able to shop together, that she was able to see me in a variety of dresses, and that she got to give me her opinion on them. It was really important to me to have that experience with my mom. The dress that I wound up choosing was unlike a lot of dresses that I was seeing in the bridal shops (satin, asymmetrical waistlines), but it had all of the elements I had hoped to find in a dress. It is silk and has a nice amount of sparkle.

So I said YES to the dress!

I know you guys are hoping to see a picture, but I plan on keeping it a secret. You will just have to trust me that it looks amazing and that I feel terrific in it.

Did you ever try on dresses that wore you?