Say "Ummm..." to the Dress?

Oh my word...can we say exhausted??  This past weekend was a total whirlwind of tulle and satin!  For those of you who read my last post, you will recall that I went dress shopping in Atlanta with my two sisters, my mom, my aunt and another adorable bride and her mom and sister (my nephew came along too, but only because he lives in my sister's belly still).  It was super fun hanging with all the gals, but I gotta tell ya, the dress shopping thing...I didn't love it.  In all seriousness, the first couple places we went were kind of fun and it was neat to get the whole experience.  But when we weren't finding the dress, I really started to hate it.  I went in to the experience with both an open mind and also an idea what the feel of the dress I wanted.  We left on Friday morning at 6am and our first appointment was at 2:00 at Kelly's Closet.  Let me just say...I die over the dresses there.  I fell in love with a Claire Pettibone dress....too bad it was $6,000.  No biggie.
 

$6,000 dress....boo.



 There were several others I loved there as well, but they were seriously out of my budget...the nice thing about the first appointment was that we got an idea of what I liked and what looked good on me.  Our second stop was at Pricilla of Boston in Atlanta, and let me just say...it was AWFUL.  My sister made the appointment last week and then got a call a couple days before that they were going out of business and all the dresses would be 40% off "as-is".  So, even though I wasn't a fan of the as-is part, I figured we would take a gander since they are normally super expensive dresses and we could get them almost half off.  Honestly, I almost wish we handn't gone.  The lady who helped us was this mean old b*tch who was just rude from the first minute.  I don't have any pics from there as we were so rushed through our time at the salon and she was too busy yelling at my family (who took the day off work to come help me find a dress) to quit pulling dresses for me.  She sucked.  Not surprised they are going out of business with the service they were providing.

Saturday was our main shopping day.  It was find the dress or bust!  We met up with another bride, Katie (a family friend, and one of my sister's best friends growing up) and we tag teamed the dresses together.  First stop was this little bridal store in Kennesaw which had surprisingly great dresses at ever better prices.  Here are some photos of some of the dresses I tried on there:



Not sure what's with the "sad face" here, but this was a lovely dress...not the one though...




A gorgeous lace option...but it was realllllly heavy!




A "princess" option...not my fave because of the skirt...but the top of the dress was absolutely gorgey.




I loved this one...kind of ethereal and very light :)




another view of the last dress....




A major contender at the first store....this was everyone's favorite at this place, but I was hesitant...




....and with the veil, it was really pretty....

  Our second appointment was at Winnie Couture in ATL...a really cute bridal boutique that had a wonderful ambiance, but sadly, all the dresses there looked wretched on me...here's a couple that were "okay" at best...



prettier dress than my group gave credit for....and i loved the open back ...




ehh




but it made my booty look good....




trying to explain that the straps would need to be altered so my gals weren't all hanging out during my vows...




but the back was gorgey :)





loved the top, but the bottom made me look "hippie"

 By the time we made it to our last appointment on Saturday, I was worn out and sooooo discouraged.  I was feeling like we weren't going to find "the dress" and I was reallllly not wanting to try on any more.  The last place we went was called Sweet Elegance Bridal in Decatur.  It's owned by a mother and daughter team and we were greeted with smiles when we got there.  The ladies sat down when we got there and asked each of us all about our wedding and how we wanted to look on the big day.  They asked us what we liked and what we didn't like and got a feel for what each of us brides was all about.  They told us that what they like to do was pick the first handful of dresses for us based on our conversation and then we could do a pass through the store once they did the first round.  I was open to ANYTHING at that point, and the gals there were seriously sooo sweet.  When I got into the dressing room they gave us a robe and brought us some diamond earrings to wear for the whole look.  They brought the first dress in and I waited about 15 minutes while they laces me up into it... "No peeking!" they said when I tried to look in the mirror.  Before I went out to show everyone, they brought me a veil and finished off the look.  I got to go out having not seen myself in the dress at all yet, but fully adorned in the whole bridal look. 

The first dress was stunning.  It truly was beautiful and nothing I would have ever picked out.  We all agreed it was our favorite look of the day so far.  Wow...picking my dresses all day was apparently the wrong way to go. We all agreed that the first dress was a contender, and they said "okay, we're setting the one aside, and every dress you try on has to beat it, or it's out!".  Wow, what a great way to approach things!  They brought about 5 more dresses in for me to try and we finally narrowed it down to the top 2 contenders.  With our top 2 set aside, they gave me and my crew a chance to make a pass around the store and pick dresses for the final round.  Everyone had some opinions and I even entertained a ballgown for a brief moment to appease my mom.  I pulled a dress that reminded me a lot of the first dress, but with a little more of the things I was looking for in it too...

....The dress I pulled ended up being "the dress"...and I really love it!  It is nothing like I thought I would end up with but I feel like that's how it typically works.  I seriously must have tried on at least 50 dresses...yeah, for serious.  The funny thing is that I know if I had tried on the dress I ended up going with on the first appointment, I would have said, "It's beautiful, but it's not what I'm looking for" and moved on.  I guess I needed to try on a bunch of duds to finally realize that this dress was perfect for me.  I guess looking for a dress is kind of like looking for a groom in a lot of ways :-).

Anyways, the below pick was my number 2 choice and it was beautiful....

The ladies at Sweet Elegance Bridal were seriously awesome.  They put all the bad dresses to shame and made me feel like a bride.  I would seriously recommend making the trip out to Decatur if you are in the market for a dress.  They even let us bring a little vino in and have a toast with our whole crew once me and Katie found our dresses (yep, Katie found hers there too!)!




Our group, left to right: my mom, little sister, Katie (bride to be), me, sister (and baby nephew in her belly), Katie's lil sis, and Katie's mom