Weddingbee Blog

First things first:

Image via Rotten Tomatoes

Around May I decided I needed to get serious about my dress search. I made appointments at three different salons. The first was Pronovias in NYC. I loved their lace dresses and I had heard that it was the best quality of lace I could get in my price range. This was probably the fanciest salon I visited. The dress samples were also the nicest. They weren’t ripped or stained—they were beautiful! Here are some highlights from that trip.

A very flattering fit

It’s hard to see but there is a bow at the top of the train. I loved the back of this dress.

But wasn’t too crazy about the front.

Spoiler alert! I didn’t chose any of these dresses. And you didn’t see any pictures of lace dresses, did you? I tried on a couple but they weren’t worth photographing. They were beautiful dresses, but none of them were “the one.” So I moved on! Next I went to the famous Kleinfeid.

It was a very pleasant experience. I had one of the first appointments of the day, which was probably the best choice. I heard it gets crazier as the day goes on. My consultant was very sweet and she introduced me to a designer I had never heard of…

Image via Marisa Bridal / Photography by Phindy Studios

I tried to do some research on this designer, but they don’t really have a website. Well, they do have a website where you can find retailers, but the only photos of their dresses are ones that real brides have submitted. You can’t find the style number of a dress, or even a picture of the dress in some cases. In my research I read that they cut costs by not advertising…which kind of makes sense. Their prices are great and the dresses are gorgeous. I tried on two Marisas that I loved! Of course they don’t allow pictures at Kleinfeld, and since it’s hard to find pictures of Marisa dresses, I have no pictures to represent this trip. But I did find out about a new awesome designer!

My next appointment was at Bridal Reflections. This was a very nice salon, but there were some weird things that happened. My consultant was showing me dresses that were way out of my price range…then when I finally told her this she said that I had written that my budget was $12,000! She wasn’t very nice about it and seemed rather annoyed. I told her my actual budget and added, “Why would I have written an amount I couldn’t afford?” She then told me they didn’t have many dresses in my budget in their store. So this trip was kind of a bust, BUT I did get to get some shots of me in two of my favorite dresses thus far that I had tried on at previous salons. The Marisa dress I had discovered at Kleinfeld and the Paloma Blanca I tried on at RK Bridal.

Sorry for the cell phone pictures:

The Marisa dress. They pinned the top to show I could make it a sweetheart neckline if I wanted.

Closeup of the Paloma Blanca

Full shot of the Paloma. I felt pretty in this dress…

At this point in the search I decided I wanted to go back to RK Bridal because they had both of the above dresses and the Watters dress I liked. I was hoping I would be able to narrow it down to at least my top two…

How many salons did you visit? Did you find yourself drifting back to the same dress at different salons?

All photos personal unless otherwise stated