Ok I feel like as a blogger I've been holding out... I barely discussed my wedding dress, most likely since I was in shock after I posted my dress post. Give me some slack, I posted a day or so after I bought the dress. So here's some more details about that faithful day, in chronological first person short story form.....
Once upon a Saturday...
I was ready. I had all of my favorite dresses for Davids Bridal and Alfred Angelo picked out. Yes I realize there are more stores then that for wedding dresses but I absolutely HAD to try on my dress, and as a plus size girl you're limited. I just could not see myself holding a dress to my body and going "Yep that looks good I'll take that" Not for my wedding dress. So those were the only two places I had made appointments at. I woke up, mailed some things off, got ready, grabbed my strapless bra and I was out the door. I called my mom to confirm that she was ready... Only to find out apparently my sister had just woke her up ten minutes ago. Great. So I head to her house, helped her get ready, helped my sister get ready, helped my little cousin (an unexpected guest since he's 4 but he proves his usefulness later on) get ready and we were off. At 10:40. To my DB appointment which was at 11:00 and 45 minutes away from where we live. I was (Silently) panicking. Luckily we were only 10 or so minutes late. I rush in to a busy store, waited for my associate to meet me. Well the first lady I met was ecstatic to meet me. VERY ecstatic. The kind of lady who may mean well, but is just wayyy too excited for me to feel comfortable around. When I told her I had a pinterest list of all the dresses I loved and style #s at DB, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. "Yay I love Pinterest too! Pinterest sisters!" Oh gosh. Unfortunately (Luckily) she had another bride who needed her help and couldn't help me out. She handed me over to another associate Cindy, in such a way that Cindy asked if the other associate and I knew each other. "Nope" When I looked for my beautiful well charted Pinterest list I was saddened to see that in this morning's rush I had left it in my car. We had all taken my mom's car. Oh well. Cindy was absolutely amazing. She was polite but not fake, listened to everything I wanted, gave me that, and then gave me what she thought I may like. When I told her my budget ($1300) she told me "So basically you have the store to choose from" Yay :) Shopping without checking tags was something I had always wanted to do but had never been able to do. Cross that off my bucket list :).
Then the dress shopping began. My mom did something unexpected. Her and my MOH became "Those" guests. The ones who run and pick out dresses that are more their styles then mine, and are usually at the price THEY think I should spend. *Sigh* Even Cindy looked a little shocked at some of the dresses they were pulling. Not at all my style. Oh well tried a few on to humor them. Then on to the next one. The dress I loved (see past post for pics) was the second to last out of what felt like a billion but was probably closer to ten that I tried on. I saw myself in the mirror and gasped. No tears, but definitely shocked. Especially when my mind started looking for flaws; in my appearance, in the dress, something; and FOUND NONE. But when I looked at my mom, just like with every other dress I had tried on, she had no reaction. When I asked her if something was wrong, she just said her back hurt. Now my mom has bad back issues so I don't think she was lying. I just wish she would've got a little more excited. Dang TLC for making me believe mothers should cry when they see the dress! She did say that she liked this dress more than the other ones, so I took that as a sign. When i asked Cindy how much was the dress, ( neither of us had been price checking lol) it ended up being $748 or so give or take on sale. Wayyyy below budget. After asking for the time, (Neither of us had been checking that either. Whoops!) I decided I wanted to try on one more form fitting dress drama dress and then I knew I would be done. We were ten minutes OVER my appt. end time, but my dutiful associate ran off to find one last dress. With the final dress, in which I looked about 3 months prego (That's hot) I was done. Off to lunch we went :). At promptly 2:30 we were at Alfred's. The place was beautiful huge full of dresses my size. The desk lady told me someone would be right with us. We gazed through the plus size range of dresses dreamily and picked out ones we loved... then we waited. And waited. And looked at BM dresses and waited again. At promptly 3:10 ish we were finally matched with a consultant, a little 5 foot girl who asked me what I was looking for and for my price. Now at this point in the story I would like to give myself a pat in the back. I did not snap or yell or complain about how long it took or when I was holding most of the dresses or even when they did not have undergarments for me to try on with my dresses like DB did. I simply smiled, showed her the ones I liked and was off. The girl had not been consulting for very long. That much was obvious. She took forever to get me in a dress, and honestly I could've probably tried on dresses quicker without her. At DB they managed to get me into size 12 dresses with the magic of clips and an awesome associate. At Alfred's they couldn't manage to get me into a size 16. Hmm. Finally I found one I liked and almost compared to the one. The style was very similar and all in all it was a pretty dress. But it was a hundred dollars more than the other dress, and was VERY plain. For some reason though I kept mulling over this dress that was obviously not me. It fit me well, and the tulle was pretty. But it wasn't me! But it looks great! But I like bling! I was fighting with myself. Looking back on it, I think I had just always imagined myself to be an Alfred's bride, that being a DB bride seemed traitorish. Oh well. One more dress, ( my mom's pick) and we were done. Now my mom had told me in the car that she always imagined me in something more traditional. I however always imagined me in something different. I'm not traditional why should I look it? So when my mom picked out what I call the Belle dress for me to try on I should've seen this coming. It was pretty, the top almost looked like the top of the dress I loved at DB but the bottom had pickups. I HATE pickups. Some people can pull them off I can't. They remind me of a comforter, as in the blanket you put on your bed. My mom loved that dress. I hated it. Hate hate hate hate hate. I couldn't get over the pickups. I felt so sad because I wanted my mom and I to love the same dress and I couldn't ever love this dress. Even though my mom told me she loved this and the DB dress equally, I knew it was a lie. But I also knew I couldn't get it if I hated it. So back to DB we went to try on the dress one more time. This time my dad was there. HE actually cried when he saw it. I knew I had made the right choice and I bought it.
What I learned from this experiences were two things :
A. To go with your gut. I knew when I had it on, I just was afraid to committ.
B. I look great in wedding dresses lol. Most of the dresses I tried on looked good on me, just not perfect. If I had decided to settle before trying on dresses I would've had a dress in ten minutes. The important thing is never to settle, and to always go after what you love. :D
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