Part 2: I Said YES To My Dream Dress

Wedding dress shopping.  When a bride hears this, it may evoke any number of emotions. For the most part this will be excitement and joy, yet, for some the process overwhelms.  As a bride-to-be working for Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo I have now been on both sides of the experience.  I love being able to relate to our brides so closely!

I am a year out from my wedding and yes, I already have my dress!

As it goes working in a bridal shop I’ve tried on my fair share of gowns, been to New York bridal market and those runway shows, and am immersed in the wedding industry.  I’d try on gowns for educational and training purposes, for company advertising purposes, and sometimes just because I could. The majority of these dresses I put on before I was engaged.

That’s when I tried one in particular and I accidentally fell in love with it. It was my dress! I never tried it on from that point forward knowing I wanted it to feel special the next time I wore it again, but I admired it every day.

Fast forward time and now I’m engaged and ready to try dresses again, but this time for real. For my bridal appointment my mom and sister came with me to Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo. It was incredibly exciting to walk into the store as a customer!

We began the process as normal, which was important to me to share the experience with the two of them. I was convinced that it would be fun but fairly quick leading to the “Yes” moment. This is where I was wrong.

I immediately pulled my favorite dress, the one I knew I’d choose, but we picked others I hadn’t tried as well, nor had I ever considered.  As I tried on those other gowns, they caught my attention more than I expected – and as a bridal consultant I know how often a bride finds something completely different than she imagined, so it shouldn’t have caught me off guard, but it did.

The time came to try on the dress I loved, but after being in some others I really liked it was not as great a moment as I had planned. I still felt great wearing it again but I knew I had one more dress to try. The last dress was another one which had recently been added to the selection in our store after I got engaged so I had not tried it on yet.

As soon I got into that dress I couldn’t help but giggle at myself. I was having a moment – the moment when I knew I was now standing in my wedding gown. Needless to say I felt silly after a couple months thinking I had a dress chosen, despite personal experience with situations exactly like this in my appointments with other brides.

You never know what’s out there until you open your mind to the possibility that you may not know exactly what you want.

Another factor I found important to the process was company. I brought only my mom and sister along because I knew they would not try to push what they wanted. Friends are important, but the more the merrier is not always true.  Being in my own appointment as the bride with just my mom and sister was an incredible experience that turned out even more real than I anticipated.

From one bride to another: Listen to your consultant when they want you to try something unexpected! I put on gowns I didn’t think I would love but did. I allowed myself to let go of the fact that I was wrong about the dress and ended up with an absolutely perfect dress for me!

Can’t show you the whole picture here, but yes, I’m hugging MY dress.  I cannot wait to wear it!