Wedding Dress Shopping

It is hard to know where to start on this subject.  A week and a half ago, I spent all of a Friday night and about 6 hours on a Saturday with my mom looking at countless pictures of wedding dresses both online and in magazines.  I had a stack of magazines that had been given to me and that I had purchased that we had both gone through and tagged different things that caught our eye or dresses that we possibly liked for me.  Now don't get me wrong, this was fun, but it was exhausting!  By the time I got back to my apartment that Saturday night, I was useless and just laid on the couch for the night.  I think it took a lot out of me because it was a matter of having a definitive opinion about hundreds of pictures for an extended amount of time.  And from what my dad told me, my mom was pretty worn out afterwards too.  But by the end of that weekend, I had a stack of dress pictures that were at least interesting to me that I could look into.  I did not want to be a bride that took one picture into a store and said this is what I want because I had no idea how it would look on me or what would be possible to find in my price range.  I just wanted to know what I liked.

I started to then do some research on different dress shops.  I took recommendations from friends, co-workers and looked up a few that were in magazines.  But then I started to read the reviews that people had posted online about these places and got nervous.  There were SO MANY negative comments about different stores and the way in which people were treated.  It started to make me feel like this was going to be very difficult and that I was not going to enjoy this the way I had hoped.

I made appointments at two different independent shops this past weekend thinking that this would at least be a good start, but that my mom and I would probably be at this for the next few weeks.  The first was at a little shop in Mokena (near where my parents live).  The girl who owned the store was young and very nice, but as more clients came in, I started to see less and less of her.  While I was the only one there, she paid great attention to me.  I probably tried on 8 dresses with only 2 of them being possible but nothing that made me feel like I had found my dress. 

Then we headed to Catherine Simms Bridal in Naperville and after getting lost and calling the shop twice while on Route 59, we finally found the shop.  This store had more room which automatically made me feel more comfortable.  We were able to browse the racks and pick out different dresses that I wanted to try on.  There was an employee that was "assigned" to me which was nice because she helped pick out dresses, even helped me try them on (which was a little weird at first) and stayed with me the whole time.  My mom and I both liked the first dress I tried on and compared everything I tried on subsequently to it.  After I had finished trying them all on once, I tried the first dress on again and thought "Wow - I really like this one".  I showed my mom again and we started to discuss it.  Although it did not match any of the dress pictures I had, it certainly had a number of the elements for which I was looking.  The longer I kept it on, the more we liked it.  I started to get overwhelmed -- Could I have really found the dress that I would wear when I get married?  I asked the shop staff to give us a few minutes and they were great because they really did leave us alone for a little while.  I got to just look at the dress for a while, sit in it, and see how it felt.  I could not believe that I may have found my dress on the first day looking!  This is not at all what I expected.  I thought this would be far more difficult.  I started to question myself -- Was I picking this one because it made this whole process easier?  Should I keep looking?  Am I picking this one too quickly?  Thank goodness I was not by myself because my mom knew exactly what to say.  After much discussion and a few tears, I decided that I had found my dress!  I could not be more excited (or more relieved)!  Thanks for all your help, Mom!  I could not have done this without you, nor would I have wanted to.