Thanks to Netflix I have been able to watch a marathon of Say Yes To The Dress. I have not seen an episode until a few days ago, and OMG do I have such commentary on the whole show. First off, these dresses are...ummm.....not my style. At all. I even saw a girl spend $25K on the dress! That was my entire wedding budget! OMG!!! Sorry peeps, but I could never do that. I would rather travel the world or buy a house then spend that much money on a wedding. But without further ado, here is a lovely shot of my dress.
Check out our Facebook Page for all the love over there. Credit: Jason + Anna Photography. Want to buy it because it is so pretty?
So here is my Say Yes To The Dress story, minus the cameras on me to capture all the drama :)
After taking over a year to find my venue, I was so not ready to have to make another decision about something so important to me. This was something I KNEW was going to be hard because despite my budget, I know my style and I can't wear something that I don't love. I never set out to "go dress shopping" and definitely didn't go through appointment after appointment of not finding "the" dress. While walking one day I decided to pop into the Priscilla of Boston store just to take a peek. I walked up and found this dress with a wow-factor. Right then and there I made the appointment.
I also was not quite the fan of bringing a million people to see my dress. I know that everyone has opinions, and I knew that I would totally know when I found the dress. I don't need any sort of approval when it comes to fashion.
I tried on the one I loved, of course a Melissa Sweet, and decided to try on a few others just for fun. (I recently showed Ian the choices and he liked none of them!) PS: I was SOOO skinny here. WOW. I think 3 are Melissa Sweet and one is Reverie.
The first dress I tried on:
The others:
The Melissa Sweet Dora (top right) was the only one that stayed in the running for more than like 2 minutes. But in the end, I decided to go with the more couture of the bunch, and not to have polka dots on my wedding dress forever more. Can I also say that I never cried. After watching all these brides I feel like I should have bawled to KNOW it was my dress. But I didn't have to. I just knew. I really did.
The Price:
This dress, the one I picked out randomly walking by, was of course totally above my budget. Like totally! And with a 20% off trunk show incentive, I did the purchasing process fast. I realize that when you find the dress the price just isn't as important. There are so many ugly wedding dresses out there that I knew once I found something awesome, I had to have it!
I wanted to spend at the most $2,000. But my hope and dream was to find a dress on one of those re-sale wedding dress sites and get a fantastic deal on a designer dress. This one was about $5k. Saying it was out of my budget is an under statement, but seeing as I was the one paying for it, I knew I could do whatever I wanted. And this is what I wanted.
So, in an effort to make the pricing work out, I listed it for sale. I am still losing more money than some people pay on a dress altogether, but it is worth it to me. I did cut some things in other places in the budget and cut some things out all together. So in the end, it worked out. My dress was so different, I mean nothing at all is like my dress.
Dress Doubts:
Did I have dress doubts? You bet your bottom I did! I got crazy dress doubts. Here are two that I became utterly obsessed with.
These Vera Wang gowns were an obsession of mine. My consultant never let me try anything else on though :) I was nervous about my dress through literally every one of my fittings. Like no joke, I just wasn't happy. Every time I put it on I basically almost cried. I think it is just something that happens, at least with me, I can never just be happy. (I'm fatter here BTW.)
The first was my muslin custom fitting and the fabric was not very forgiving. It left a bad taste which lasted until the second fitting (right) when the stomach of the dress felt too big.
The entire time I asked for a sweetheart neckline, and the entire time I was promised such, until the last fitting when they told me they couldn't, then that it would cost a lot more. It ended up being a short lived hiccup in the plans and I got the sweetheart neckline I wanted thanks to my consultant who took the rap for that promise she had made. And can I just say, that change made the dress a million times better to me. At that point, I knew that I was right all along with my choice.
In the end, I was absolutely obsessed. I received endless numbers of compliments on my dress not to mention the fact that it was insanely confortable and not too heavy! It was beyond any healthy liking of a dress. I loved it enough that I am planning another shoot to give myself a chance to wear it yet again and try it on from time to time just because.
And I will say that Priscilla of Boston is absolutely amazing. They are so nice and so amazing. They didn't do anything but help me out, give me what I wanted and offerred the most incredible service.
Oh AND on top of that, they offer a discounted cleaning as well. For only $100 they sent the dress to Connecticut for a deep cleaning with the official Priscilla of Boston cleaners who know exactly how to work with these fabrics and these gowns. The dress looks literally perfect after all that.
So what do you think??? Tell me all about your Say Yes to the Dress stories! Were you going back and forth? Did you cry???