Last week while I was home in Chicago I had the much-anticipated task of wedding dress shopping.
For
weeks, I had been nervous about these appointments. I didn’t have a
clear idea in my head of what I was going to look like on my wedding
day, so I went into these appointments blind.
My first appointment was at a boutique in Lincoln Park, Chicago called
Weddings 826.
The set-up was perfect for our first appointment since it is a huge
room filled with bags and bags of dresses that we were able to pull
right off the rack.
My
mom and sister Hannah (my other sister Nellie was already back at
school in Kentucky) came with and served as my panel of judges. We were
told we had exactly one hour in the dressing room and so as soon as the
timer started the three of us went crazy grabbing dozens and dozens of
bagged dresses.
What
I hadn’t really thought through was the fact that I had to get naked
with the dress attendant. (So word to the wise, wear some good
underwear). We went into a closed off section in the large room and she
told me to strip down. It was a little awkward just standing there
basically in the buff while she took each dress out of the bag – but
after the first five dresses I finally got used to it.
With every
dress that I tried on we started to started to get an idea of what
looked good and what did not. We quickly determined a few things that
were not going to be a part of the winning dress:
A dropped waist:
Feathers:
Or Straps:
With
all of the No’s, we were led to the ingredients that did work:
strapless, sweetheart neckline, A-line, a long train, slight ruching,
and an off white color.
After three dozen dresses, I finally put
on one that worked. It met all of my criteria and looked good. It needed
a few additional alterations to make it the dress that I wanted, but I
felt great in it. The attendant took my measurements, but I just wasn’t
ready to bite the bullet after one round of tryouts, so we left for
lunch and decided to sleep on it.
---
I wasn’t looking forward to
Round Two of shopping the very next day. I felt like I had picked the
winner and didn’t want to go through the whole ordeal again but
thankfully my mom pushed me to give it one more shot and so off to
Volle’s in Lake Zurich we went.
We
got to our room and unlike Weddings 826, the attendant picked the
dresses for me after I told her what I had liked from the day
previously. She brought out about ten and off my clothes went.
The
first dress I put on made us all certain that we were in for a tough
decision. The dress was perfect. It was everything about the dress from
the day before, but more. And it felt like me. As I told my mom, “If I
were a wedding dress, this is what I would look like”.
The
attendant forced me out of the dress and into a few more, but after
about six others I really wanted to put the first dress back on.
She
clipped me in and told me to get comfortable in it. As my sister tried
on Bridesmaids dresses, I sat in my dress. I could move, dance, twirl –
and I didn’t want to stop looking at the mirror. The dress is simple but
classic, and is everything I didn’t know I wanted in my wedding dress.
I
even got a little teary eyed as I stood on the pedestal looking at
myself as a real bride. It was the first time since I’ve been engaged
that I was truly overcome with the fact that I will be the one walking
down the aisle on June 22
nd’, 2013 – and I’ll be doing it in
this dress.
**This post is also featured on TheKnot so come check out here too!**
