THE DRESS

Me and my honey (and, of course, THE dress)

Every magazine, website, and television show has made it their duty to ensure that a bride understands the magnitude of the decision of finding THE dress.  I swear to all that is holy most of these sources are fairly convinced the dress decision is at least as important as the groom decision.  The right dress is the holy grail of the entire wedding planning process.  And heaven knows, it cannot be just A dress.  It must be THE dress.  And so it's not surprising that even the most level headed of us can crumble under the pressure of finding THE dress.

A month after our engagement, my MOH flew down to DC from Boston for the weekend.  We went to a dress shop recommended by a friend who had gotten married the year prior which carried the bridesmaid dress I had found online.  She tried it on and we agreed it was a winner.  And then, surrounded by white satin and lace, I succumbed to all the hype.  I tried on a ruched satin dress with a single strap.  Lovely, but not what I wanted.  And then two more - a beautiful raw satin dress with a full skirt and rose bud detail and a lace trumpet dress with a flowered belt.  Both were beautiful and totally different from one another.  I loved them.  Both.   One, the satin one, was exactly what I thought I wanted.  I thought it would look beautiful at our venue.  The other, the lace one, was stunning and different than anything I had ever seen.  Modern, yet vintage.  But I wasn't "really" looking that day.  Just essentially playing dress-up.  I would wait another month until my mom came to visit.

The on-sale David's Bridal option

When mom did come town she and I went back to the same bridal shop along with Rich's mom.  I put the three dresses back on for them.  They both agreed it was clearly between the second two.  Mom and I had another appointment that day at a fancy shop in Georgetown.  We walked in and they started pulling dresses without even discussing our budget.  This made me nervous.  I had seen enough bridal shows to know the cardinal sin of dress shopping is to try on a dress you can't afford.  I used this same tactic years before when buying my first road bike and understood exactly the rationale.  So, in the midst of undressing, I piped up "Um, should we talk budget before I try these on?".  The salesgirl responded cheerily, "Oh.  All of our dresses are between about five to ten thousand".  Oh indeed...  Mom and I looked at each other, smirked, shrugged, stifled a giggle, and I kept undressing.  Five thousand was well over my budget.  But we were there, so why not.  The good news was that the five dresses I tried on couldn't hold a candle to the two back at my little shop in Virginia.

The expensive DB option

Before I was ready to commit though, I decided the wise decision would be to investigate the options at David's Bridal.  I had nothing to lose and figured if I could find a pretty, cheaper option, why not?!  My MOH had found her beautiful dress on the clearance rack there for a steal.  So, with two willing and helpful local friends in tow, we hit the store.  Unlike my previous experiences, this was a much more hands-on situation.  We dug through the racks and found dresses that could possibly look nice on me and dragged them to a dressing room.  Two were pretty nice and one of them was on sale but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to make the decision of my dress based on price.  I had bought into the hype.  It's my DRESS!  I can't make Such an important decision based on price!!  It's as if someone suggested that maybe I should marry Rich because rent would be cheaper.

In the end - and after much contemplation - I chose the lace trumpet dress from Katherine's in VA.  It was the dress that I thought looked best, that I knew my mom and Rich's mom liked best.  But most of all, I chose it because I thought that of all of them, Rich would like it best.  It also helped that I had a wonderful experience with the shop.  That's something that I definitely hadn't thought about but was wildly important.  From the time I first tried on the dress until my last fitting I had lost fifteen pounds.  I knew I would and I did.  But it did mean that my body changed and that the dress needed to change too.  In the end the seamstress at the shop brought the dress in a full two sizes and every piece of lace, every bit of trim was perfect.  It took three fittings but when it was done it was gorgeous.  And if I hadn't gotten my dress from a wonderful bridal shop, I'm not sure that would have happened. 

Waist detail on THE dress

And looking back today, I'm happy with my decision and loved my dress.  It was unique but classic, fit with our venue and flattered my figure.  The strangest part though is that sometimes, deep in the back of my brain, I still wonder if I chose the right dress.  Intellectually I know I did.  When I look at photos I know I did.  When I heard all of the genuine compliments from friends and family, both in person and from those who had just seen photos, I know I did. But there is something about the hype around it all, the magnitude of the decision (however artificial), that leaves me with a little voice in the back of my brain wondering if there was something better out there, something I hadn't tried on.  And I guess that is a lesson in itself.  Because of all the hype and all the pressure to choose THE dress, no one ever really tells you that there is no ONE dress.  There are lots of dresses.  Lots of good options.  But eventually a decision has to be made and the most you can hope for is that you're happy with your choice and have a good experience in the process.

Bustling THE dress

Note:  And just to show what a ridiculous, consuming process the dress hunt really was, my next post will actually be a guest post from Rich, sharing his perspective on the whole experience.  It should be interesting!