I Said YES to a Dress!

I really have just a vague idea of the "Say Yes to the Dress" show - I was only reminded of it when a woman at the store where I said yes referenced it and I played along...awkwardly. I know it's on TLC, so that leads me to believe it's an over emotional and dramatic version of what I experienced.

After much online browsing and pinning on Pinterest my mom and I visited just three stores to find my wedding dress. I'm on the fence when it comes to loving shopping, sometimes it's awesome and other times it's terrible. Thankfully my mom makes most shopping experiences pleasant, that was helped my excellent service at 2/3 shops.

We visited Felicity Bridal, Winchesters and Always and Forever, in that order. I tried to find Annabelles in Dartmouth, but it turns out they closed up shop.

While my mom has an excellent eye for clothing I would like she lacks in photography skills, despite this she did a pretty good job capturing my antics and lack luster posing. She took a bunch of photos (for the most part) in each dress that I tried on and I picked a few of each to help you get a better idea of how it looked on me.

My goal was to find a simple dress, without beading, sequence and a lot of bulk (as I've previously said, I don't want a family to be able to camp out under there). I was also hoping to not be laced into my dress. Not that I have anything against these qualities in a wedding dress - they just aren't for me.

Lets start with some 'outtakes', now I'm not looking awesome in every photo (sorry Tyra!) but these ones were particularly fun:

Testing eatability in a dress at Winchesters.

Flattering, no?

Okay, lets get to the decent pictures, these are in the order of dresses I've tried on. Here are the dresses from Felicity where we received lovely one-on-one service from Christa:

Dress #1 - I LOVED the bottom, despite my desires to have a simple dress. This was my number 2 pick at Felicity.

The train wasn't very long for a simple bustle

Dress #2 - I seem to have only one 'good' photo of this dress, the material was really heavy so I don't remember being in it a long time to have many good photo ops.

Dress #3 - This was my third choice at Felicity. I liked the simplicity and shape but I wasn't huge on the straps or the small amount of cleavage (the clip is hiding it in the first picture)

Trying on a veil for fun, I won't be going with one

Dress #4 -This dress has pockets!! I liked the bodice but it went a bit too long before poofing out again.

Lesson learned: don't wear bras even if they are strapless
to try on a wedding dress

POCKETS!!!

Dress #5 - This was my absolute favourite at Felicity! On my first go through I didn't even pick it out, Christa snagged it for me to try on. The pictures don't really do it justice, but I actually have a figure in this dress - hips?! Picture the dress without the flower on the top of the bodice.

This flower would be going

Dress #6 - This was not a favourite, it had beading under the bust and too much fluffy stuff going on at the hips, but it's fun to try on different things.

Dress #7 - I called this dress the leggy Spanish dress: it's made in Spain and REALLY long. Again, not my cup of tea but still fun to try on.

Holding things into position while the excess dress is clipped

Off to Winchesters we go

Dress #8 -I liked this dress, it was simple with more of a layering effect giving a nice amount of texture. But sadly it had laces.

Dress #9 - This dress was too small on me so we started out on the wrong foot. Again there are laces up the back so it's not ideal and I wasn't huge on how the fabric was layered on the front.

Too small!

Dress #10 - I liked this dress, you might be noticing a theme at Winchesters (layered with laces). Once again the laces were happening but otherwise a pretty dress.

Day 2 and our last and final store, Always and Forever:

Dress #11 -Beading AND laces? I know, two of my goals out the window. Needless to say this wasn't the dress.

Dress #12 - This was my number 2 pick at Always and Forever (imagine it without the flower on the front). I liked the neckline and how simple it is. It also has ample room for eating, an incredibly important element!

Dress #13 - This was most definitely a 'sure, lets try THIS dress on' dress. As you can see it's being held up around my neck by what can only be described as a neck wreath - TADA!

It also was A LOT of dress!

Dress #15 - This was also definitely not the dress, but what the heck! This is a very good example of an unfriendly-Ali eating dress.

I did like what was happening here though, if felt very structured

Phew - so if you stuck with me until the end of this post, please applause yourself in a particularly rowdy way as to pretend I was there with you - you know, because I'm rowdy.

I will not be revealing what THE DRESS looks like until our wedding day, well I suppose a few days after as I can't imagine I'll be blogging day of. I'm told Brides don't have time for things like that on their wedding day.

I did manage to find something that met all of my requirements, in fact it actually made my mom cry so that was a hint it was a keeper. I had no idea that wedding dresses elicited tears but there's that old saying you learn something new every day for reasons such as this.