A Day of Dresses

How I Got Really Stressed and Over-whelmed!

Wedding dress shopping is supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be something you do with your friends or your mother, bonding and having fun. I got really stressed and over-whelmed.

I am a very decisive person. Usually decisions don’t take me very long. I’m an impulse buyer. 

However, when choosing a wedding dress I went all to pieces.

I was a bit shy when I walked into the bridal shop. I’m not used to rooting through racks of dresses and to be honest, it’s difficult to know what to look for. I knew what I liked in the pictures but I wasn’t  sure what would suit me. What I really wanted was for the lady in the shop to choose all the dresses for me, but we had to start somewhere.

I think going to the bridal shop with a good idea with what you want is a good start, but I wanted to be open to something that might not be my taste but does make me look amazing.

This is why I was open to trying on a fish tail dress. It was a beautiful dress but it was not me. I’m a curvier bride with quite a young face. While I do think curvy girls can wear anything we like, I don’t feel the fish tail dress made me look as stunning as I want to on my wedding day.

So fish tails were out!

Once the lady in the shop understood my style, she began suggesting different styles for me. That was when I started to relax.

Chatting with the lady in the shop also helped. It was good that I have an interest in weddings as I was able to talk about Four Weddings, Bridezillas, Don’t Tell the Bride, Wedding House, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, The Wedding Diaries and Wedding Babylon. She was also able to impart some of her experience of other brides.

However, I left the first shop very unsure and feeling as if I hadn’t found The Dress yet. 

Mum, chief bridesmaid and I then went to lunch and very carefully didn’t talk about anything to do with The Wedding.

It was then to the next bridal shop. This was one that chief bridesmaid had been to before when she began her search for The Dress, so this brought back fond memories for my chief bridesmaid. She and mum made themselves comfortable on the gorgeous leather sofas while I got down to my undies.

They had a huge selection and mum and chief bridesmaid seemed to busy themselves with looking for  more and more dresses for me to try on.

But nothing clicked with me, nothing said, ‘This could be The Dress.’ I started to get quite disheartened. I thought the dresses I tried on were beautiful but they just weren’t me!

It was as if I liked bits and pieces from each dress but I couldn’t find a dress that had everything I wanted. I even tried on a huge dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.

Normally very decisive, I was unable to make a decision! Unheard of!

The whole experience was really over whelming. I was excited but nervous but unsure about the dresses, I was thinking about what h2b would like to see me in and this image in my head I’d had about my perfect dress was starting to drift away.

Until, chief bridesmaid picked out two last dresses. The lovely lady in the shop could see I was getting a bit distressed and she said that these should really be the last ones. I was grateful.

The last but one dress I tried on after a long day of wedding dress shopping felt like The Dress. It had the shape, the sparkle, the quirk, the something that made it speak to me. I immediately went from tired and stressed to giddy and excited as if a switch had been flicked!

I didn’t want to take it off! I was walking around in it, trying sitting down in it, hopping around the bridal  shop like a kid on Christmas morning. I was smiling! Mum and chief bridesmaid were smiling!

However, we are going to keep looking just to check that we’ve made our final decision. Apparently, I’ve  been told that it does take more than one day of wedding dress shopping to find the perfect dress. How the men on Don’t Tell the Bride manage it is beyond me!

What I achieved during my day of wedding dress shopping are:

• I prefer a fuller skirt so the hoop is in
• An a-line silhouette suits me better rather than a ball gown silhouette 
• I can wear a sweetheart line without showing too much boob
• Fish tail and fitted dresses are not for me
• I need a dress with a bit more sparkle or detail or with something unusual to it

Successful day I think!