My wedding dress buying experience was a teensy bit unconventional, but it was WAY easier than I ever expected. I am super indecisive and always analyze every option in a situation before making a decision (#virgo), so I thought that I would never be able to decide on a dress. I had seen THOUSANDS of wedding dresses between Pinterest, blogs, and Say Yes to the Dress, and I rarely ever saw one that made me think "YES I would wear that on my wedding day!" so I was nervous that I would never be able to find one that was perfect for me.
I had a style that I wanted in mind, but before trying anything on, I wasn't even sure if it would suit me. My only experiences trying gowns on at that point had been for prom (ha!) and I knew that lots of the time, you can put on a dress that you're totally not feeling and end up loving it, so that made me even MORE unsure of what I wanted.
I have four major wedding dress retailers in my area, and I wasn't really planning on traveling far to shop, so my options were already relatively limited. On TOP of that, I hadn't even really set a budget for myself. I had no idea what to expect from dress prices in my area, so I didn't even know what would be realistic.
After Christmas, my best friend and Maid of Honor was still in town for a few days, and at the last minute late one night I thought to myself "You know what, why don't we just go LOOK at some dresses? I don't even have to try any on, we can just get a feel for what's out there." I texted my MOH and she was in for the next day, a Saturday. I also called my dad's mom, Granny B., and invited her to come as well because she had offered to help me pay for the dress, so of course I wanted her to have the full experience, even if I wasn't buying a dress that day.
On Saturday morning, I called around to the three wedding dress boutiques in my town to see if it would be okay if I just came in an looked. (The fourth boutique is about 30 minutes away, and I didn't figure we'd be able to hit them all in one day.) I know that it's conventional to have an appointment, so I didn't think they'd just be like "Yeah, come on in!" The first place I called said that they had a last-minute appointment cancellation for 11:00am that I could take, which was perfect! I told them yes, and called the other two bridal shops in town. Neither of them answered, so I figured I'd call them again after my appointment.
In the meantime, I filled out a wedding dress survey that the boutique had sent me so that they could get a feel for what I was looking for. It was helpful for me too, because it brought my attention to a few details that I hadn't really considered.
I went to pick up my Maid of Honor, she bought us some coffee (angel!), and we headed to the appointment with my mom, and met my Granny there. (The boutique is in kind of a strange area to get to. Granny got a little turned around on the way there but as fate would have it, she ran into my dad and brother on the way there and they helped her get there, ha!)
When we arrived, we were greeted by the consultant who would be working with me and took us all back to the dressing rooms. We discussed the survey I had filled out in a little more detail with her. I showed her some dress photos as well, so she could get a better idea of what types of silhouettes and features I was interested in.
The consultant also informed me at that time that dresses can take up to nine months to be custom made to your measurements, PLUS the factories that manufacture them were about to close for a month or more in observance of Chinese New Year. At that point I hadn't felt like I was late to the game for dress shopping, but that made me feel like I was really on a time crunch! Based on that timeline, I was looking at up to ten months before getting my dress if I were to order it that day. And my wedding was in ten months! *sweating*
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| Back in the dressing area waiting on our consultant to come back! |
My consultant went back to their treasure trove of dresses to pick some out for me, and also told me that if I had seen anything on the mannequins in the front that I was interested in, she could pull those too. There were two I had seen that we had all really liked, so she brought those, along with four other selections back to the dressing room.
I tried all of the dresses on, and my favorites ended up being the two that I had pulled from the mannequins. The ones that the consultant had pulled were beautiful, but nothing that I would say yes to. I asked her if she knew of any others she could bring in that were more similar to the ones from the mannequins, but she said that since those were their newest arrivals, there weren't really any others like the. I wished that I had been able to pull more dresses myself, because I feel relatively confident that I could've found some others that would've been contenders.
We left the first boutique on a maybe, and rather than calling the other boutiques again, we decided just to show up to Bridal Impressions next and
When we got there, there were no other customers, and they were perfectly fine letting us look around. This boutique was set up so that you could walk around and look at the samples yourself, which was much nicer than blindly having a consultant pick for you. I found some GORGEOUS dresses right away, and one of the associates was like "...Do you wanna try those on?" UM, YES! I totally wasn't expecting them to allow me to try anything on without an appointment, but since we were the only ones there, they let us have the run of the place.
I tried on four dresses, all of which I loved but received varying levels of enthusiasm from my group. Some were too low cut (in my mom's opinion), one had a slit that we hadn't noticed until I put it on, and some just clearly weren't "the one."
The last one I tried on was a STUNNER, for the first time, everyone loved it and no one even had any critiques. It had all of the details that I wanted included in my dream dress, which to maintain the element of surprise, I won't disclose. Could I have found the perfect dress already??
Since I wasn't expecting to be able to try any of the dresses on when I started picking them, I hadn't paid any attention to the prices of any of them, so I was nervous. What if this dress is $10,000 and an automatic no? Much to my relief, I checked the tag on the dress actually and it was actually ON SALE, making the price just under the budget that I had set in my head by that point based on the prices of the dresses at the first boutique.
In that moment, I felt like this was really MY dress. Then the associate who had been working with us came to me with one little catch - that dress was a sample, and the style had been discontinued (hence the sale price), so it could not be ordered custom fit to my measurements. The dress was much too big for me, so I was worried about the possibility of having it altered down to be the right size. She ensured me that she's seen dresses sized down up to eight sizes without issues, so that pretty much sealed the deal for me. The dress was mine! I stood there in it for a few more minutes second-guessing myself - could it really have been THAT easy to find my wedding dress on a spur-of-the-moment outing?? My entourage convinced me that if it felt so right, then it had to be the right choice. The stars had aligned, and I said yes to the dress!
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| Bridal Impressions |
We paid for the dress, and got to walk out of the store with it that day. Surreal, right?! I'm so grateful for being able to have taken with us that day rather than having to wait who knows how many months for a custom-order dress to come in. One of my friends is getting married in October of next year and picked out her dress a few months ago, and she said she still feels like she was "late" to pick it out based on how long it's projected to take to come in. I don't know how these girls who plan their weddings in six months (or even less than a year) do it!
We packed the dress up in my trunk and had a good laugh at how it sort of looked like we were kidnapping someone stuffed in a white bag.
Since then, I have researched wedding dress alteration specialists in town and taken it to the one who I felt was the best. She brought it down to the right size perfectly and I was so relieved! I just picked it up this past Friday and I'm so happy to have it all done! I can't wait to wear it, and I can't wait for everyone to see it!
I still torture myself by browsing dresses online in some potentially self-sabotaging attempt to validate my choice, and I'm happy to report that I haven't found anything within my price range that I like better than my dress, so that's good, right? 😅 I actually saw photos from a photographer I know of a bride wearing one of the dresses I tried on and loved (but my group didn't), so I'm glad I didn't get that one even though it was absolutely beautiful!
I hope you enjoyed reading about my wedding dress shopping experience! I was almost dreading it deep down, recognizing my indecisive nature and being so nervous that I'd never be able to decide on one. I'm so pleased with how it went and how easy it ended up being, and especially that my best friend, mom, and Granny could all be there.
I hope you're having a wonderful week!
xoxx, Laura
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