A Whirlwind of Dress Shopping

So I thought I'd talk a little more about my experience shopping for the perfect wedding dress. First of all, from what I have learned, START EARLY. It generally takes the bridal salon several months to get in the dress you ordered, and then you have to allot even more time for fittings and alterations. Because I have only been engaged for a couple of weeks and already have a dress, I worried that I was jumping the gun..but not really, since I won't be seeing my dress until January (which leaves about three months for fittings and alterations).

To start off, my mom and I headed up to David's Bridal in Glen Burnie. We mainly went there just for fun, to kick things off and just start trying on dresses. It was pretty much like shopping for clothes in a mall store. You pull whatever you want and try it on yourself. I did fall in love unexpectedly with an Oleg Cassini tea length dress, but ultimately left without it.


Later that day we visited Annapolis Formal and Tuxedo in west Annapolis. The shop was super duper tiny and their selection was pretty limited, BUT...that's where I first found and fell in love with THE dress. The next day we went to Bridals by Elena in Severna Park to try out some more options. This was the best one of the day (I tried it on in a darker sort of champagne color):


And then finally, we went to Betsy Robinson's. I tried on this dress: and wound up putting a deposit on it.
[enjoy this horrible cell phone photo]

BUT.

Pump the breaks!!

Literally about two hours later, sitting around at Justin's waiting for him to get home, I was flipping through a wedding magazine and saw a picture of a dress that looked very similar to THE dress (the one I fell in love with at the Annapolis place). I crumbled. And totally panicked. I called my mom in a tizzy saying I was having second thoughts about the dress we had purchased today. So, then I called Betsy Robinson's and spoke to my amazing consultant Maria. She just happened to have the Annapolis dress (from here on out referred to as THE dress) for me to try on along with the one already purchased. It would be a final showdown of the dresses, if you will.
The next day I went back to Betsy Robinson's with a crew in tow- my mom, dad, Justin's mom, his sister Becky and her daughters Elise and Lyla (my flower girls, of course). I tried on both dresses for my entourage, pretty much knowing which one was for me already.

Obviously THE dress won, so we switched around my order and I walked away feeling content and happy. So moral of the story is- go with your gut, your first instinct. Don't get swept away in the moment when everyone is gushing over one thing, but your heart really lies elsewhere. From the moment I first tried on THE dress, I knew it was for me. So basically it was like all those episodes of Say Yes to the Dress, where everyone is always gushing about that "AH-HAH!" moment of revelation and joy when they find their dress. I guess that actually does happen in real life (except without all of the tears).

[p.s.- i won't be showing any pictures of my dress, talking about my dress, etc. on here. muahahahah!)