Dress Shopping Part 1: Try on ALL the Dresses!

I can finally talk about my dress!!

Lest you think I'm spending my honeymoon blogging, don't worry!  I somehow found a few minutes to write these few posts before the wedding, since I've been dying to share with you! Enjoy!

To start, here were my stats for dresses before I even stepped into a salon:

• lace or tulle material
• not too fitted, not too poofy
• non-strapless, if it looks good
• No "rocket dresses" - Sphinx's term for a drastic mermaid dress, and I agreed. 
• Under $2,000

I feel like I hear a lot of girls start off saying they want straps, but end up with strapless anyways.  Sometimes strapless just looks better than you thought it would, sometimes that's just what's available, but I knew I wanted to try.  It wasn't a requirement for my church and it wasn't about covering up areas I was unhappy with; I just wanted something that looked a bit different.  I had also browsed enough dress sites and magazines to know that like 85% of what is out there is strapless, and I wasn't a fan of cap sleeves being added onto a strapless dress. So I knew I had my work cut out for me, but I was set on putting in the legwork required to find my perfect dress.

In 2010 or so, this was my dream dress.  When the time came, I knew it wasn't right./Photo from Jim Hjelm

So the dress shopping journey started really early, like two weeks after we were engaged.  We were coming back from our first venue appointment, and Momma P was sneaky and drove me and MOH Curls to a local bridal salon "Just to look!"  It sure was exciting to try on dresses for the first time, and Y'vonne Lafleur doesn't have so many dresses in stock so that it's overwhelming.  There was one dress there that Momma P loved on me, but I wasn't sold.

The very first day trying on wedding dresses. 

This store doesn't keep the designer labels in the dresses, but as soon as was able to get home and search on preownedweddingdresses.com, I found out this dress was most definitely Allure Couture C207.  Even looking at the photo now, the dress does look fabulous, but in person there was too much bling up by the shoulders, the lace was odd, and it wasn't full enough for what I wanted.  On paper, this was my dress, but in reality it just wasn't doing it for me.

In all, I went to about seven different bridal salons over the next two months to try on as many dresses as I could.  I know Randy Fenoli would highly disapprove, but I am indecisive and picky.  I knew from the beginning that I would never have that magical "this is it!" moment.  I knew that I would over analyze my decision and need to see all of the options.  Fortunately, Momma P is on board for any kind of shopping excursion, so we took our time hitting up stores in New Orleans and Baton Rouge to find the perfect one.

On our journey, we ran into plenty of beautiful dresses, but they didn't make the cut.

I can't remember the brand of this, but it was a The Bridal Boutique by Mae Me

If you can ignore the dumb face, you can see that I was saying "This dress is nearly perfect, I think I just want something a bit bigger!"  Once I looked at the pictures, I didn't love how it looked as much.

This photo cracks me up.  So conflicted! So indecisive! 

I adored the Martina Liana 411, but it was more than I wanted to spend and super blingy.  I didn't want plain lace, but this was too much.  It did fit like a dream and flowed beautifully when I walked. I thought to myself, if I were some kind of pageant girl who needed something to one-up every fantastic dress that I ever put on (which has been the dilemma on many a SYTTD episodes), this would be my dress.  That's not my scenario though, so I set the dress aside.

Again don't remember the dress designer, but this was at Blush Bridal Boutique. 

And I never tried on that Jim Hjelm, but I did learn that maybe the keyhole style isn't for me.  They require a lot of material up by the neck, and I didn't find it as flattering.

So I could show you a ton more pictures, but that's enough for now.  I tried on so many dresses, but my initial "must haves" didn't really change much.  I still didn't want anything too fitted, and I still wanted lace.  I learned a few more things - like how I didn't want to have to add an expensive belt to an already expensive dress, and I really liked the look of a low back.  It definitely seemed like my dream dress was possible for the price I was looking for, but maybe I just had to get a little bit creative...and that's what we'll talk about next time!