Weddingbee Blog

Or, that time I was scarred for life: my experience dress shopping.

As I have mentioned, I didn’t exactly spend too much of my wedding-planning energy thinking about my dress. It just wasn’t high on my list of priorities. Even so, I did manage to develop a vague, general idea of the type of dress that I wanted - lace, vintage-inspired, form-fitting.

However, as much as I didn’t want to think about the dress, I realized that, since I wanted my mom and BMs to be with me when I tried on dresses, I probably needed to figure out the dress situation when Mr. CA and I were in Seattle last August. So, my mom did some poking around, and scheduled appointments at 3 different salons (none of which allowed photography, so my apologies in advance for the lack of pictures!).

Let me just say now, again, that I hate trying on clothes. Particularly dresses. I know my mom disagrees (you look beautiful in everything!), but I honestly feel that in most dresses, I look like an ox with my broad shoulders and wide rib cage. You might disagree with me (*ahem* mom), but that’s just how I feel. Can’t help it. I also don’t like being the center of attention, so there’s that too.

{Photo by Marion Post Wolcott/ Via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog}

Just imagine those guys in a dress

The cherry on the top? I had just spent the previous week in San Diego, indulging in Mexican food and getting massively sun-burnt on my thighs and chest. So, let’s just say that I was not feeling like the most attractive person in the world.

Yes, I was indeed dreading the whole wedding-dress search, thankyouverymuch.

My first appointment did not help alleviate my fears. The salon got super busy and was much too small of a space - lots of girls trying things on, salespeople running all over the place, dresses hanging all over the place. I started to feel very claustrophobic here. The dresses didn’t feel like they were the best quality, either. I may just be a snob, but they felt, well, not well-made. Some of them fit my vision of the perfect dress, but the lace felt super stiff, and just wasn’t what I wanted.

Basically, the saleswoman helping us just shoved my BMs and me in the direction of the racks of dresses, and we sort of picked through things ourselves. She popped back over every once in a while to see how we were doing, and pulled a dress or two, but mostly we were fending for ourselves. I was overwhelmed, and slightly panicky. I tried some dresses on, was underwhelmed, and started freaking out. Great. I will never find my wedding dress, and will end up walking down the aisle in some random dress that’s already in my closet. Or naked.

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

We decided to call it quits on that store—I really can’t remember which dresses I tried on. I may or may not have blocked most of that experience from my memory.

Needless to say, I was a bit leery of the next dress salon. I really shouldn’t have been—La Belle Elaines is awesome. The gal helping us was super attentive, and helped pull a ton of dresses that totally fit the vision I had in mind, walking me around the store to each rack of dresses. She also indulged me when I casually mentioned that there was a random dress in the window that was totally not in the same style as my other dresses, but that had caught my eye all the same. So she pulled that one, too.

She was a machine—whipping the dresses on and off, taking me out to the runway when I semi-liked a dress. I had an entourage, consisting of my mom, MOH/ sister Granny Smith, BM Golden Delicious, and BM Fuji, to give the thumbs up or down to the various dresses. I probably tried on a total of about 20 dresses? Maybe? There were way too many to count, and after a while they all blended together a bit. All I know is, my dressing room was full of tulle and lace. Also, my dress-elf who was helping me even kindly ignored my crispy-red thighs, God bless her.

That fitting definitely bolstered my mood. Slightly more optimistic, we made our way to the next bridal salon, which carried a bunch of designer dresses, where Step-Mom Apple joined in the fun. By this point, I was a bit burnt out from the whole experience, and was getting slightly more self-conscious than when I had started. I mean, as much as I love having saleswomen see me essentially nakey (someone please explain why I thought a thong would be an appropriate undergarment choice that day??), with my sun-burnt legs and all, it just wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time.

The dresses at that third place were nice—there were one or two that I liked, but I was fairly meh about most of them. Since I was still slightly plump from my Mexican forays the week before (mmm Jalapenos burritos), and the dresses were fairly small in size, I sometimes felt a bit like I was squeezing myself into sausage casing with the dresses. They definitely fit my form-fitting requirement, I’ll give them that!

I am starting to see a pattern here with this whole planning experience—me, trying to cram in as much as possible each day that I am home, subsequently getting incredibly burnt out with the whole thing. I might need to rethink this strategy…

What was your dress-finding experience like? Were you as self-conscious/ shy as I was? Did the whole experience overwhelm you a bit?