I Bought My Dress!

What a weekend!

Saturday morning I ventured out with my mom and my mother-in-law to be to a somewhat local bridal salon. I’ve heard only good things about this salon, so I figured what the heck.

I’m not going to lie, I was extremely nervous going into this!  Having obviously never shopped for a wedding dress before, I was so clueless of what was going to be ahead of me and most of all, worried I wouldn’t find anything in my budget.

C and I are doing this wedding of ours on a very strict budget.  The whole reason we decided on a destination wedding was to save literally thousands of dollars that would have been spent on a wedding at home.  Therefore my dress budget was $500.

For a girl who watches episode after episode of Say Yes To The Dress, having a budget of only $500 can be pretty scary!! 😉

We were greeted by one of the nicest sales reps I have ever met who immediately made me feel welcome while asking what I was looking for.  My answer to her was that I wasn’t really sure exactly what I wanted in terms of style, but what I did know was that I didn’t want to go over $500.  She then directed me to their clearance rack, then their sale rack, and then to a rack of more expensive dresses that would end up under $500 in the end due to a 25% off sale.  After she showed me where these racks were, she left it up to me to sift through them and see if anything caught my eye.

I’m not going to lie, this is the moment when my mind kind of went “uhhh………….”.  I started sifting through blindly but then also shocked to see how so many of the dresses were closer to the $1000 mark.  At the beginning I actually had this sinking feeling in my gut wondering if I was even going to find anything!

That was when I just started looking at price tags.  If I thought the dress looked ok and the price was within budget, I grabbed it for the change room. I ended up with 4 completely different dresses.

The first was a sample dress on sale.  It was a simple strapless a-line dress,  with a ribbon under the bust.  Although I did like the dress, once I had it on, I decided it was WAY too heavy to wear in Jamaica, and also it was actually too plain. (I don’t even remember the designer).

The second dress was the most different and modern of the 4.  It was an Alfred Angelo taffeta gown with one strap and a lot of rouching.  The gown was super comfortable, not too heavy.  It was simple, but classy at the same time.  When I had it on, I actually thought it might be the one.  I can show you a picture of this one because I will tell you, it was NOT the dress I bought 😉 (please ignore the fact that I look pissed off in this picture)

The third dress I tried was another a-line dress. Again, I can’t remember the designer, but it was gorgeous.  It was mostly satin with a lace layer over top that had a lot of beading details.  It looked gorgeous on but again was extremely heavy!!  This girl doesn’t need to be passing out on the beach because her dress is too heavy and hot!  The other negative about this dress was the long detailed train.  I didn’t want a long train dragging in the sand, and the fact that this one had detailing all along the border, altering it would be a no-go.

So that dress went away and I went to try #4.

Dress number four wasn’t even a top pick off the rack. I literally only agreed to try it on because of the price tag of $500 (normal price $1536!). It was a Maggie Sottero sample gown on sale because the style was discontinued.  Now I can’t even go into details about the dress incase C decides to read this some time, but what I can say is… I had been admiring Maggie Sottero gowns for weeks now but honestly put them out of my mind because of their high price tag.  I had also always loved the style of this gown but was worried that it would be too hot and heavy for a beach wedding, so again, tried forgetting about the style.  BUT… when I put this dress on, I just knew it. It wasn’t heavy at all!!! I immediately felt beautiful in it and knew that it would be my dress.

Just to make sure, I tried on the Alfred Angelo dress on one more time (that is when the picture above was taken). And as soon as I stood in front of the mirror, I knew I’d be going home with my very own Maggie!

My Maggie dress is now tucked away safe in sound in a closet at my parents’ house awaiting a little alteration (hopefully by my grandma) and I couldn’t be more happy and excited!!! 🙂

All we need now is the rings!