It seems that despite our best intentions, life sometimes gets away from us. In the interim since my last post, so much has
happened! We traveled across country to
try caterers and take engagement pictures, family visited for the first time to
see our new place, we tried several new local restaurants, a lot of wedding
dress shopping happened (more on that later!), we received our engagement
photos, and this past weekend was my fiancee’s birthday. Whew!
Wedding planning just jumped to the foreground of my
world. I’m in a rush to make all the big
important decisions only to realize…wait: there are still hundreds of decisions
left! And I don’t feel overwhelmed (yet,
haha, no doubt that will change in 6 months!). I think we’re attacking these
decisions early enough to get a good handle on things before the wedding. I’ve just realized that I have to break
things down into categories and attack them one at a time.
So the first important decision? The dress.
My sister commented that everything else is nice and all, but it really
is all about the dress. I don’t know how true that is, but while my mom and the
groom’s mom were in town, I definitely made use of their time to try on a ton
of dresses and gather opinions. After a
day of looking (and three bridal shops later), we were narrowed down to two top
contenders. Making matters worse, the dresses were very similar in silhouette,
just extremely different in finishing touches.
They definitely had different personalities.
Side note: for those of you who haven’t tried wedding dress
shopping, it’s definitely an experience.
The dresses in the store are typically size 10-12 or so, and the associates
either clamp you into the dress (literally pulling the dress snug against your
body and using industrial clamps or pins to secure the shape) or add an
additional fabric piece to the back of the dress to “let it out”. Sounds strange (it was a little weird for the
first few), but it definitely gives you a feel for the silhouette of
the dress and how it will move around your body. Pretty clever, actually!
So back to the exciting part, here were my top two choices:
Both were fit-to-flair style, which worked very well with my pear-shape. And for you smaller on top ladies, no worries: the dresses have boning and fit tight enough that all the weight is supported around your waist and you can definitely pull off a strapless! No adjusting/tugging all night. This was pretty much the best piece of news I discovered all month.
And for grins and giggles, here is a picture of me pinned into the second dress--they do a surprisingly good job, no?
So my advice for brides-to-be: try on a lot of dresses, take your time, and it's totally ok to go back to the store and try it on again. In fact, I'd definitely advise trying on your top few choices back-to-back (even if they're at different locations) to make that final decision. I fully understand the "you only get to do this once" pressure of finding the perfect dress. So I sent out pics of me in both dresses and polled a ton of friends, but ultimately the decision was mine. There was a certain feeling for the dress. As one of the associates put it: think about what you want the groom to see, of how you'll feel walking toward him in that dress. That's the important part.
