dresses, dresses everywhere!!!!

So! Today was my wonderful first day shopping for my wedding gown. And let me tell you, it was fun :) Hehe. I did feel rather silly at first, and it is still bizarre to me that I actually went shopping for a WEDDING dress today, but it was a LOT of fun!

My lovely bridesmaids (minus my poor sister, who had been up all night with my sick nephew!) and my wonderful mummy joined me for a very girlie day of trying on dresses, eating McDonalds (whoops!) and finding bridesmaid dresses (yes, it looks like we have found them first go...more on that later!).

First up we had an appointment at 10am at Park Avenue Bridal. The ladies here were SO lovely, professional and HELPFUL. I was so overwhelmed when we first walked in, there were just SO many dresses to choose from! The lovely saleswoman we had (Julie) picked out a whole bunch of dresses for me to start with, based purely on my body shape - allowing me to try on a number of different shapes. As we moved through them, as I commented on things I did and didn't like, she would pull other dresses and cull the ones that didn't seem to fit. At the end of the day, we ended up with 3 dresses - two that were rather similar, and 1 COMPLETELY different. One was a lovely vintage style, one was more of a 1920's/modern look (these two were rather similar but had very different bottoms) and one was a complete PRINCESS dress that had a full bottom and completely jeweled top. I was SO surprised by the last one and how much I liked it!!

Going into the process, while I really did have a very open mind to try on almost anything, I did have a vintage/old world charm in my mind. The first two dresses very much fit into that, but the last one was the COMPLETE opposite. It was pure white for one thing, when everything else I tried on was mostly ivory, and it was ... well, a Cinderella dress. Completely. And I loved it. But as much as I loved it, it really isn't what I had in mind for my wedding (it doesn't really fit the style) and as the sales lady said - I love it...but so does everyone else. She considers it a slow week if she doesn't sell at least two of those...not making it as different as I'd like :)

The other two dresses remained...everyone else had a moment when I walked out in the vintage one (it was one of the first I tried on). I didn't really have a moment. It was definitely the first dress I had tried on and liked though! It was very pretty and it looked really nice on but it just didn't feel like the type of dress that I wanted to wear to my wedding. It turned out to be a very useful thing though, because I discovered that (opposite to what I thought!) I am leaning more towards a fuller skirt and less towards a fitted dress. This was a very fitted dress with a BEAUTIFUL lace overlay but it just wasn't right.

So by the end of it we were left with the 1920's/modern dress. I really, really like it, it is beautiful. After all the culling it was definitely my favourite out of all we tried on at the store. But did I tear up and have a moment? Not quite. I think the next few days will tell how much I like it, because I'm someone who knows how badly I want something if it sticks in my head for days after...as such, not going to go into too much detail at this stage! But it was lovely, different, old worldly yet modern. I think the future mister would like it as well, which is a bonus (I've already established that he will laugh at me in anything too..."foufy" haha).

Alas, no photos from this store! We weren't allowed to take any inside (much to the disappointment of my sister) and because most of the dresses are designed specifically for the store, they aren't floating around on the web. Don't fret however, I have a couple from the next store!

After some lunch and some bridesmaid dress shopping (this one will have it's own post, I promise!) we headed into a small boutique up the road from Park Avenue, called Vision In White. Smaller selection of dresses (which was good, because we were up for a shorter visit by this stage) the staff were lovely but moved a lot faster then the other store - basically if you didn't love it straight away, it was taken off and you moved to the next dress. We tried a few on here, nothing really grabbed me...until I hit the pocket dress. OMG THIS DRESS HAS POCKETS. SO cool!



This dress is called the "Mimi" and is by Wtoo Brides. Again, this was a dress I was completely surprised by. I tried on the ivory version and when the lady pulled it from the rack, I thought it looked like a 50's prom dress (and the ivory looked a little dirty). When I got it on though, the lady removed the flower (MUCH better!) and honestly, the cut of the top of that dress was SO flattering. I loved the pockets, and what I loved the most was that this dress allowed me to take advantage of how much I love sashes! With a sash on, this dress looked gorgeous. I was completely picturing it with something similar to below:

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I was surprised at the simplicity of this dress and how much I loved it...the only "but" was the material. And it was a big "but". This dress was MARKEDLY cheaper then the other store (although the other store happily worked with my budget) but unfortunately it showed because quality of the materials in most of the dresses was somewhat lacking. Unfortunately this dress was one of them. In any other material this dress probably would have been a strong contender. In fact, I had tried on a dress at Park Avenue that didn't make the cut but was a GORGEOUS material and it would have been PERFECT for this dress.

The second dress that made the final cut at Vision In White was this Henry Roth - Inga:



What I really liked about this one was that it mixed a few of my favourite things from other dresses into one - the fuller bottom, the lace overlay and a sash! We turned the top into a sweetheart necklace though, and it looked a lot better on my shape :) This one comes in all different colours of lace (I tried on one with a gold edged lace, which was very pretty) and the colour of the sash can be changed. It was really pretty but again...no moment.

There's another store in the area that I really wanted to go to (two of my friends have found their wedding gowns there) but unfortunately it is closed on Sundays. We're going to head back one Saturday, I think it will be another long appointment because they have a lot of stock! Should be good fun :)

Otherwise, we're going to hit up the area where my SIL found her gown! Today was very much more about getting used to trying on dresses, finding out what shapes and styles I like, and just having fun. I wasn't expecting to find a gown today so it took a lot of pressure off and just made it a lot of fun. We still have a lot of time to play with, and now that I have a better idea of what I like it will make the process a little easier next time!

How did you guys all go with your first wedding dress shopping experience? Did anyone find their dress their first time out? Or did you take your time and try different stores? I would love to hear your experiences!

Next up, the bridesmaids dresses and slight adjustments to our wedding colours!