I began my wedding dress hunt knowing that I have never wanted a strapless dress. No offense to all you strapless-loving-ladies out there, but I feel like everyone who has been married in the last 5 years has done so in in a strapless number. Sure, they're gorgeous and can be made of different materials with different beading and details to make them stand out from one another. But when I tried to remember the dresses from weddings I've attended, not one thing stands out about any dress. You line up all the dresses of my friends and cousins and I wouldn't be able to assign who wore what. They all look the same to me in my fuzzy memory, besides the fact that they're all strapless. I knew I needed to be a little more unique -- even if it only mattered to me.
I started looking online to see what I liked, and came across Pre-Owned Wedding Dresses. Being the deal-hound I am, I thought it was a great idea for a website and started saving favorites so that I could go back to them later if I never found a dress I liked in person. I also planned to cross-check the site for a better deal if I found a dress that I loved. None of my friends seemed to think this was a good idea. "Why would you want a dress that someone else wore on their wedding day?" They felt it was bad luck. However, many of the dresses on the site have never been worn. Not even once! Many of them are sold by people who bought 2 dresses because they couldn't decide between them...and I myself have had two friends who've done the same.
I made appointments at bridal shops to try on dresses. Right away I found that rather than the gauzy chiffon-style dresses or lace that I thought I'd love, I was loving silk materials like satin. The shine and richness of the fabric kept drawing me in. At store #1, I found a dress that I liked a lot -- and it was strapless.
At store #2, I found THE dress...only to flip over the price tag and see that it would cost me $1400. My budget was somewhere around $600. The other bad news was that it was a private collection dress that is only made by the designer at that ONE particular store...meaning there was no way I would find the dress for a cheaper price online. I disappointedly gave up the idea that I would ever wear that particular dress.
I decided to keep searching for a dress that was similar to the $1400 one, but that had a more budget-friendly price tag. I finally found one. My friends cried as they saw me try it on. It fit me like a glove, molded to every curve of my body. It was this dress by Mori Lee (Style 2505):
I wasn't able to buy the dress right away because I was waiting for my mom to send me the money (she had agreed to purchase my dress). She must have sensed something in my voice that told her it wasn't THE dress. I couldn't get her to commit to purchasing it, regardless of the fact that I emailed her pictures of me in the dress and talked about it constantly. She kept putting it off and I was getting really annoyed with her.
A month went by. Every time I looked at the photo of the dress I fell less and less in love with it. I couldn't determine why...was it the way the model looked in it? Her strange pose? Was it that the model is wearing diamond white and the one I liked was ivory? I just couldn't put my finger on the reason why I was gradually falling out of love with (what I thought was) THE dress.
I started looking online again. I went back to preownedweddingdresses.com and looked at my saved dresses. I kept going back to look at one Essence of Australia dress in particular. It had straps...isn't that what I wanted to begin with? It had the chest portion similar to the last two dresses I loved. And it had the body of the first dress I loved. And it was satin. Could it really be every little part of every dress I'd liked so far, all rolled in to one? AND WITH STRAPS?
I did some research and called 5 different shops that sold the brand, finally finding a store 3 hours away that had the sample. I meekly asked Jeff, "Could we go on a 6 hour road trip on Saturday?" to which he responded, "Sure!" (One of the 2,395,382 reasons I love him!) When I arrived at the store and saw the dress in person, I knew before even putting it on that it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I tried it on, spent about 3 minutes admiring it, got dressed and left. It was the quickest bridal appointment EVER! I knew the size 10 dress for sale online would be perfect after trying on a slightly snug size 8 (however I was also 4 months pregnant).
Right away I emailed the seller and we got the ball rolling. I purchased the dress for $600 and the seller paid the shipping costs. In the store, the price tag was $1055 and that didn't include shipping or taxes. I estimated that I saved almost $600 on my wedding gown, and I didn't settle for a dress that I wasn't completely in love with!
I can't wait until I lose some baby fat (currently 6 months pregnant -- I've got awhile to go before that happens!) so that I can "officially" try on my dress. I LOVE my dress. And I LOVE so much that I didn't spend an arm and a leg on a wedding dress of my dreams.
Here's my wedding gown -- Essence of Australia D970:
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