The saga of the dress(es)

It was a week (yep, a week) after I got engaged that I found my dress.

It was Fall Break, a three day weekend, and we realized it would be the only weekend in months that I would be able to make it back to Bakersfield. It was pretty important to me that the first time I tried on wedding dresses was with my Momma, who is the most wonderful person and a great friend. So, we decided to go for it, just for fun of course.

Before leaving to attack the bridal salons, my mom pulled out her dress. My grandpa had had it preserved and sealed the day after my parents' wedding and it had been in our garage all my life. It felt like a sacred moment. And then I got to try it on! I was pretty emotional. (Please ignore my face in all of these, I was a little excited and I'm pretty sure my face was twitching. Also keep in mind that the dress wasn't altered to fit me and was fairly wrinkled, but if you've ever seen pictures of my mom on her wedding day you'd know how absolutely gorgeous it is.)

I was really hoping that there might be a way to use that dress as a sort of foundation for mine somehow, but there were a couple reasons that it didn't seem that would work out: 1) my mom was smaller than I was and taking dresses out is harder than taking them in, 2) I assumed that that would be a cheaper option when we first discussed it, but it's really not, and 3) the material is a little heavy and stiff, which is great for indoors, but because my wedding ceremony and reception are both outside I was leaning towards something lighter.

With that in mind, Christina and Hallie (two of my four fantastic bridesmaids), my mom and I set out for Valencia. On the way there, Hallie called around at different bridal shops (basically to make sure they had dresses in my very, very low price range), all the while pretending to be me... it seemed to make sense at the time, but now I don't recall why.

The first place that was both open and a possibility was called Chantilly Bridal. It was pretty cute, and the lady helping us out was sweet (I can't remember her name at the moment...), but I was feeling pretty anxious. She let us thumb through the racks ourselves while asking me questions and trying to guide my search, but unfortunately I haven't mastered bridal speak and was having a hard time communicating what I thought I was looking for. So, we just started trying things on.

Awkward doesn't begin to cover how I felt. I will just let the pictures speak for themselves:

It was around this point that the lady suggested we look at bridesmaid dresses, since I wasn't trying anything super extravagant on anyway, which would give us many more options in my price range. I was all for that, so she disappeared and came back with three dresses. The first thing I saw was bright orange. Seriously. But the sales lady assured us they all could be ordered in white (and showed us a fabric swatch to prove it). I absolutely loved the orange dress it on the hanger so I tried that one on first.

You know how you're supposed to get this rush of exhilaration and break down crying when you find The Dress? I didn't buy into that (and I maintain that there are probably hundreds of dresses out there that would have had that effect on me), but that totally happened to me. Unfortunately I can't post pictures (Trev does read this), but I was smitten. Chills, tears, the whole shebang. In that moment, with Christina, Hallie and my mom snapping pictures and our helper lady swirling around me saying "I knew this was the one!", I felt like bliss incarnate. When it was time to take the dress off, I kid you not, I went back to the dressing room and twirled.

But, we decided it would be rash to impulsively buy the first dress I tried on and liked. So we left our credit card information with them and asked them to hold it over the weekend, which they were happy to do, and set off for home.

The next day, we hit up David's Bridal in Bakersfield, and this time my dad and brother Kyle came. (Lots of good stories from that, as you can imagine.) Tried on some more dresses...

...but nothing compared. So we went home, and Monday we ordered the bright orange bridesmaid dress in pure white! I honestly can't wait for it to get here. I will wear it every single day. (Just kidding... maybe.)