Finally, the long awaited dress shopping post. In a perfect world, I would have posted this months ago so that I could actually help brides who were also shopping….well, at least now if there is a bride who looks at this, she might be able to catch one of these dresses on super sale. Or she can just curse me for being the lazy bum that I am.
The phrase ‘clothes horse’ doesn’t even begin to describe me, which anyone who knows me can easily attest to. I knew there would be a lot of expectations about my dress and I didn’t want to dissappoint. Pretty much once the ring was on my finger, I started thinking about it.
I knew that I didn’t want to do a big-name designer at one of those monster bridal boutiques (ahem…Kleinfeld’s), but other than that I had no idea what I wanted! I liked not having a specifc idea in mind, I felt it kept me more open to different dresses. I did have two rules though: 1) no mermaid dresses, 2) no heavy beading. I also didn’t want a dress that anyone would call ‘sexy,’ but this is more a general rule. I hate that word and I never want it to be used about me, but that’s a post for another time.
I love Spanish designers, of any sort really – architects, clothing, the list goes on…so after a little researching I knew that I wanted to go to Pronovias, a Spanish bridal designer. I highly recommend this boutique! The dresses were beautiful and intricate and surprisingly within my budget! Many of the dresses were under $2200. The boutique itself was sleek and modern and the bridal consultants were great!
This was the very first wedding dress I ever tried on. I think I got very lucky because I instantly liked it. After having such a good experience with my first dress, I was hooked! I loved the girl I worked with, she started off with something simpler so we could pick apart what I liked and what I didn’t. I knew in my heart this wasn’t it, but I still loved getting to wear it for those few minutes.
I loved this 2nd dress. It was beautiful and 20s-inspired and it felt light enough for a beach wedding. After looking at the pictures though, I didn’t like how it photographed. So that’s a big tip! If they let you take pics (some don’t, but I found most did), take as many as you can! My wonderful sister/maid of honor who went with me took pics as well, it was really helpful to get an idea of how other people would be looking at it. So this one was out….
I knew the impracticality of having a lace dress with a huge train at the beach the second I looked at this, but I still had to try it on. Why not? I knew if I really loved something, the environment wasn’t going to stop me from wearing it. This was unbelievably beautiful. Was it the one though? No…maybe if I was a little older, a little classier, but right now – this wasn’t the one. (this was probably the favorite amongst everyone I showed it to)
There was a likely chance that I would be the only person to like this one, but I also knew that this situation was bound to happen during dress shopping since my style is a bit (to put it nicely) ‘unique.’ What can I say though? I love feathers and I would probably put them on all my clothes if that wouldn’t guarantee constant comparisons to the Chicken Lady.
So that was my experience at Pronovias. Overall, it was probably the best first dress-shopping experience I could have asked for. I didn’t hate any of the dresses I tried (about 6 total) and I got a sense of what I liked. Like I said before, I highly recommend this boutique! It was a great place to start and the selection was incredible.
I found that I really loved sweetheart necklines and affirmed that I didn’t like beading, of any kind. So it was on to the next boutique, equipped with more experience and a better idea of what I want. For the second round, I chose something completely different. I went with Lovely, a small boutique in an old brownstone near the meatpacking district. It was indeed quite lovely. They only carry small, independent bridal designers (including season 5 Project Runway winner Leanne Marshall), which was exactly what I was looking for.
I had secretly been yearning for a non-white wedding gown (much to people’s chagrin I might add), I specifically wanted something in blush. I knew that this hope might be in vain since wearing a colored dress is almost taboo. There weren’t any color options at Pronovias, but Lovely had a small selection of blush gowns. (Side note: I’m totally going to start a bridal boutique filled with colored wedding gowns, there are far too few options available! I have a very hard time believing that I’m the only one who dislikes head-to-toe white) This Watters dress is the first I tried on at Lovely, and this was the first time I knew it was love.
The blush color, the feather-like dramatic skirt, the sweetheart neckline? I was almost ready to hand over my credit card. I knew that would be silly though…especially since I ended up loving this next dress by Love, Yu:
Complete 180, right? How is it possible that the same girl who liked the blush feather dress also loves this one? I loved the Old Hollywood glamour look and I loved that it didn’t look like a wedding dress. This just proves that you really need to try EVERYTHING in order to know for sure.
Was I suffering from wedding dress delirium? I knew I had to try more on, just so I could prove I didn’t just like everything, a fact quickly proven by the next string of dresses:
There was nothing wrong with any of these, I just knew they weren’t the one. Just like with men, you need to go through some bad ones to know when you have a good one.
I did find another blush dress I liked, this one from Sarah Seven:
I first tried it on at Lovely and I liked it, but I just wasn’t sure yet so I went to a different boutique in Connecticut to try it on again. I don’t know if it was just the experience I had at the boutique, but the second time I tried it on, I knew for sure it wasn’t the one.
Just a note about the bad boutique experience – this was the first one I had gone to where the girls were really pushy. At both Pronovias and Lovely, the very sweet bridal consultants encouraged me to go home and think about it before I made any decisions (something everyone should do!). The girls at this boutique would actually ask me ‘are you saying yes to this dress?’ (I know, I can’t believe they really asked me that either), and they would ask this after every single dress I tried on, even if I only expressed lukewarm feelings about it. When I asked some questions about the Sarah Seven dress, all of a sudden the owner of the shop exclaimed ‘Let me take your measurements! Do you want to pay in full now or just put down a deposit?’
Needless to say, the experience really soured me. Be warned – no matter how much you like a dress, if the salesgirls are pushy, it will probably take away from the experience. I’m not going to blame them for me not choosing this dress (the fabric was too shiny and I knew it just wan’t the one), but I definitely could have gone through them for my accessories and my bridesmaid’s accessories since they’re located in the town I’m getting married in, but I chose not to. After this boutique, I only went to one more and even though I had a better experience at that one, I knew I was done. I had scoured online resources as well and I got incredibly close to shopping burnout, something that has never happened to me before.
After all that dress shopping, I had two great options. I thought for sure it would be one of these two:
But which one? Neither actually. I realized that even though I loved both, I couldn’t see myself walking down the aisle in either, because with both – I was sacrificing something I wanted. For my wedding dress, I didn’t want something that was good enough, I wanted something that was absolutely everything I wanted wrapped into one. The Watters dress came close, but I felt it was a little too heavy for a summer beach wedding. I wanted something lighter and sleeker, which is what appealed to me about the Love, Yu dress.
I ended up with a dress that I didn’t even try on, partly because the designer was located on the other side of the country but mostly because the dress didn’t even exist yet. It was a custom-made design that I worked on with a wonderful Portland-based designer. People think I’m crazy for taking such a blind leap of faith with my dress, but I knew that I would rather take this risk than end up with something I knew I was settling for. The risk ended up paying off – big time – my dress is exactly what I wanted and it fits perfectly to boot. No alterations for this bride. I love knowing that no one has ever had my dress and that it’s something that is completely me.
Of course I won’t give you any other details, you’ll have to wait until the wedding! Luckily for you, that’s very very soon!
On a different tangent – I just have to say how wonderful it was to have my sister there. She gave me her honest opinion and she kept in mind what I like before saying she didn’t like something because she knows we have such different styles. I can’t even begin to express how much I love her and how helpful she’s been through the whole wedding process!
