Last week I told you all that I needed to get on the ball with dress shopping. It was one of those wedding to-do list chores I had slated for this month but was quite reluctant to do. Friday night I was hanging out with Steve and his mom when they both cornered me to ask about dress shopping. After not being able to come up with another reason to put it off I agreed to call my parents to see if we could go dress hunting the next day, they said they were free and could meet me & Steve’s mom. We agreed that David’s Bridal would be a good place to start if I just wanted to look at shapes. A lot of the other wedding boutiques in the area limit you to a small number of dresses you can try on—which I don’t understand, quite frankly. Anyway, I called to make an appointment and the best they could do was 4pm. Holy engagement season.
The next day, I arrived to David’s Bridal about 20 minutes before my appointment. It was like walking into a watering hole in the Serengeti. During mating season. Claws were ripping through isles of puffy wedding dresses. There was shouting. Women were balancing three Vera Wang’s on each arm while a surly manager barked at them about not letting the dress drag on the ground. Girls who looked young enough to star in a Disney channel show were twirling in front of mirrors while their families watched with discerning eyes. No one paid me any attention—never even made eye contact with me. It felt oddly similar to walking into Abercrombie & Fitch as an overweight, uncool teenager. Not wanting to bother anyone—and also to get a jump on my consultant, I decided to peruse the dress selection alone. And by “selection” I mean I made a beeline for the Vera section of the store. As you do. I noted my top choices and moved on to the other designers while quickly glancing at the sale section.
I was waiting for my parents (I’ve always done all my dress shopping with my dad, so it would have been weird if he wasn’t there) and Steve’s mom to arrive but made my way to the reception desk and asked to check in. The lady was insanely overwhelmed, quickly pulled together some paperwork for me and asked if I wanted to meet with their Photography representative while I was waiting for my consultant. I consented.
Mistake #1.
Never forget that from the moment you get engaged until you get down the aisle that everyone is going to try to sell you something you don’t need. For instance: David’s Bridal Photography. How are they going to sell it to you? By pretending to be interested in you and by over-explaining everything as if your brain is drenched in liquid stupid and you can’t see out of your love-is-blind set of eyes.
“What’s your name?”
“Emily.”
“And your prince charming?”
Um. “…Steve…”
“Ok Emily, I want you to picture your perfect day with your perfect guy, in this case, Steve… You’re walking down the aisle with your father and the photographer takes this picture of you (points to a photo of a girl walking down the aisle with her father) only it’s you and your father…”
My motivation and energy was immediately halved by every overly described photo he showed me.
how incredibly dragged down I felt/probably looked.
“… and this is a picture of her flowers, this bride loved her flowers. This is a picture of her maid of honor helping her put her dress on.”
By the end of the consultation I was aching to get the dress shopping over with and get onto dinner which at this point I was hoping would be full of comforting carbs.
My parents and Steve’s mom arrived halfway through the photography pitch and acted much more grown up and well behaved than I did, asking questions, making eye contact and not being super dragged down.
We found a consultant—and by consultant I mean a woman who may have worked for David’s Bridal for six minutes—who escorted me back to a changing room.
Mistake #2.
Inexperienced wedding dress consultants will make you feel uneasy about the appointment and awful about your options.
She explained the rules: 3 dresses at a time. She ran back into the store to grab three of the craziest dresses I had been secretly admiring. Most of which had crazy puffy bottoms and weighed 15 lbs. Meanwhile another bridal consultant who saw me looking around like a lost puppy started a conversation with me.
“I see that your dad is out there, are you a daddy’s girl? Do you think he’s going to cry?”
“No, we’re not criers.”
“Is this your first time looking?”
“Yeah, I just want to get an idea of what different shapes look like… I guess.”
“Are you overwhelmed?”
“Extremely.”
“It’s ok, just try to enjoy the process.”
“Right.”
After stripping down to a super uncomfortable amount of clothing I wormed my way inside the first dress. Vera. Obviously. I made my way to the overly crowded pedestal and immediately ruled out every single puffy dress in the store. I looked like the tooth fairy. And not like a pretty tooth fairy. Like the Kirstie Alley tooth fairy from the 1998 movie Toothless cross-pollinated with the Rock’s version of the tooth fairy.
So dragged down.
I tried on the second two dresses and became increasingly disappointed.
Then the consultant dragged in a satin halter-top dress with lots of silver embroidery. The dress from my actual nightmares.
I threw my clothes back on and marched into the show room. My parents and mother-in-law were upset to see that I wasn’t wearing some sort of wedding dress. They loaded me up with a back full of dresses and told me to not come out until I was wearing a wedding dress. I tried on all the dresses they gave me and reluctantly showed them everyone. We picked at the dresses and figured out what we liked and what we didn’t. After about an hour I marched myself back through the aisles and found a pretty lace dress with very minimal beading. It didn’t have much material and was cut pretty close to the body—something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be comfortable with but I tried it on anyway. It was about two sizes too small but even at two sizes too small it was still about 60x’s more flattering than anything else I had tried on. Everybody agreed that this was heading in the right direction. Of course they didn’t have it in my size. Or any other size. It was the only one in the store and the surrounding 60 miles.
My mom grabbed two more dresses that she asked me to try on. I knew they wouldn’t be flattering (another halter-top) but Steve’s mom insisted that since I was the only daughter that I HAD to try whatever my parents asked me to. Totally fair. Of course I looked like a linebacker so it was back to the aisles for me. After a couple other funky dresses a senior sales consultant swooped in and suggested a couple. Nothing was working and we were nearing the third hour of the appointment.
Alright. I thought. Anything lace. It’s worth a shot.
There was a dress I kept passing by that was top to bottom lace with a little bit of sparkle but not enough to totally turn me off—the only reason I kept going past it is that the under layer was NOT white—or even ivory. It was champagne. Like a really sweet light gold color with an ivory lace. I had talked about not wanting a white dress for my wedding with… like, everyone in my life and they seemed a little less than amused so I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction this would get. BUT WHY NOT. By some miracle the dress was my size. My size and crazy on sale.
I took it to the back and the consultant helped me dive into it. It fit perfectly. It felt perfect. Even before seeing it, I just had a feeling that this was it (same thing happened right before I met Steve). She gave me a look that let me know I was probably going to like it. She disappeared to the back and pulled out a veil. As soon as I stepped up into the mirror and saw how perfect it was, I was sold. The color is fabulous for my skin and the lace is super romantic and vintage-y—just like I was imagining. Bonus: I knew Steve would love it. It’s a perfect mix between our fashion sensibilities.
I walked out to see the parents totally aware of how much I was glowing. Their surprised and supportive faces confirmed that this dress was on point. It took my mother a minute to believe that I actually loved it as much as I was saying I loved it because she thought that it was more her taste than mine but I couldn’t imagine ever loving another dress any more than I loved this dress. I looked different in this dress than any other dress. I looked like a woman. Not a girl. I don’t know how to quantify the difference between girl and woman—but I felt the difference in that moment.
Once we all agreed that this was the dress my dad stood up from his seat walked straight up to me and gave me a big meaningful hug and with something that looked like tears in his eyes whispered that he loved me very much. Like I said: we’re not criers. The sentiment of the moment caught me off guard and I started to tear up too. So did the seasoned bridal consultant. And my mom. And definitely Steve’s mom. It was this huge moment that I hadn’t dare to hope for.
Then my consultant interrupted our hugs to make me ring a bell to let the world know I found my dress.
Oh well.
So, anyway. Very surprisingly, I have the dress that I’ll wear when I marry Steve.
I kinda wanted to tack some pictures on to this post but a) my camera phone is broken/makes everything look like it’s blue in the middle & 2) it would be mean to tell Steve to never snoop around my blog again.
The very first conversation I ever had about what my wedding dress would look like was with one of my bridesmaids, Lauren—and this dress is almost exactly what we dreamed up for me—it’s perfect and I couldn’t be happier with my decision. Getting the dress also helped me further narrow my focus and pare down my ideas—which, let’s be real: needed to happen.
