So a little rant/ story time for this Tuesday morning...
When I first got engaged I immediately started looking at dresses. I watched every single episode of Say Yes to the Dress, I spent hours online dreaming of gowns out of my price range and I ideally had a plan of the exact people I wanted to shop with. I have an opinionated friend, a feel-good-about-everything friend, my sister and my mom in mind. Then my Fiancé told me that his mom wanted to come along since she never got to go dress shopping with his sister for her wedding. Great; another opinionated one. Then other bridesmaids started to chime in about wanting to come. I had about 7 people expecting to go dress shopping with me at this point. NOT what I wanted.
So my anxiety about this anticipated shopping trip lead me to begin visiting dress shops to pre-try on dresses in order to get a sense of what I liked, so not to waste any time. What started as one store turned into me visiting over six bridal stores and trying on over 25 dresses. Granted, I did invite one of my bridesmaids on these trips; but she slept in and left me hanging the morning of. That kind of set the tone for me.
From the third shop to the sixth shop I spent lots of time trying to find a dress that “beat” the best dress I tried on. Everything I put on in my mind I was comparing to that dress. Everything came back down to that one dress.
My Fiancé was with me driving one day and said listen... are you going to plan this trip and buy a dress or what? And I said to be honest; I think I already know the dress I want so I just have to bring everyone to the shop in hopes that they agree. He said why? If people don’t like it will you still like it? I said yes. Yes I will.
The issue was that the dress I wanted was one that I tried on at Ferre Sposa. They have a hefty alteration fee and from the reviews I read, some people ended up paying more for their repeated alterations than they did for the dress. That was stressing me out, even though I loved my salesgirl and loved the entire experience there. I said well, I want this dress but I wanted to see if I could grab it from Mona Richie Bridal since they can order in anything from Pronovias. He said... say no more.
He got on on the phone with Mona Richie and bartered the cost down to 3,000 all in including unlimited alterations. The dress itself is listed at 2,700 before taxes so that was mind blowing. LESSON ONE: Don’t be afraid to hassle shops for your dress. I would have never done that; and seeing how far down they came in price when speaking to him was crazy.
We drove there as soon as he hung up the phone and put half down on the dress. And it was done. Just like that. We left and I started crying. I was so anxious about telling people I didn’t bring them and I didn’t want to disappoint them or have anyone upset at me. But once I broke the news to people and told them we can all come for my first fitting; no one was actually upset at all! Even my mom said that as long as I loved it and I was sure about it, she knew it would be great. LESSON TWO: go with your gut. People may surprise you. And for me, I’m too emo and I take people’s opinions to heart so this was something I had the ability to choose completely by myself. I don’t regret it at all.
If you’ve made it this far; congrats. Lol. But don’t be afraid of doing things like this on your own. I’m so happy I did.
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