The Dress

This weekend was a big weekend that was definitely one to remember. I'll be splitting it all up into separate posts, but I figured the best place to start is the beginning.

Saturday I had an appointment to try on wedding dresses at White Lace and Promises. 

I don't know what I expected it to be like, but whatever I was thinking it was going to be it wasn't. 

Friday evening I ended up watching Say Yes to the Dress for the first time, and I'm not going to lie, it terrified me. 

I did not want to be in the middle of that hot mess, and it made me super anxious about the morning.

But, my best friend and Maid of Honor was in town and so were my future in-laws, and we took them to the Cotton Eyed Joe which pretty much distracted me from all of that. 

Seeing my MOH was pretty much the best thing ever. I miss her all the time, and I was so excited that she drove all the way down through a major snowstorm just to be here for this. 

So we spent Friday night line dancing and shooting tequila like old times, and watching Eric's parents break it down on the dance floor...claiming their rightful titles of coolest in-laws ever. 

We woke up Saturday morning and drove to the dress shop. It wasn't opened yet, but there was already a line of anxious brides-to-be hovering outside, peering into the tinted windows. 

The dress I was dreaming of was there in the window. It was the dress I'd  pinned and fawned over in magazines and online and it was shining in the morning sun right there in front of me. 

This was the "Jade" dress by Maggie Sottero, and as soon as they signed us in I had them pull it out of the window to try on. 

So you walk in and they sign you in and then they bring your entire wedding possy into a mirror lined room, decked out with chandeliers, white couches, and a pedestal in the middle for you to stand on.

Walking through the shop to the room was exciting and terrifying and dizzying. It was just sparkles and lace and glitter everywhere...hundreds of dresses lining racks that went on for rooms and rooms. 

We set our stuff down and the woman helping us, Lindsey, gave us the run down of how it would go. 

They give you colored clips and you go around sticking them on any dress you like and want to try on. 

It's entirely overwhelming but also kind of the best shopping you could ever imagine doing.

So there's like four other brides and their groups of bridesmaids and moms and cousins and sisters and they're all rummaging through racks as if someone else might get the best one if they don't find it first.
 

Ok, so it wasn't THAT dramatic. But there was still this weird sense of urgency. Partly because of the other brides, partly because your window is only two hours, and partly because you have an entire group of people waiting on you which is really freaking intimidating.


So I immediately found twelve dresses to try on, and disappeared behind a black curtain to begin trying them out.


Lindsey was pretty much the best and immediately made me feel comfortable and not crazy. I felt super weird asking her to do things for me, or get me things, or having someone dress me, but she was a pro and made it so much easier and fun.


So I slipped into the Jade dress first, expecting to fall madly in love with it and call it a day.

I don't know if I was expecting this shit to happen:

But it certainly didn't.

It was beautiful, but I didn't get that weird giddy, OHMYGODI'MGETTINGMARRIED feeling I thought I would have the moment I was in a wedding dress.

I walked out and stood on the pedestal as my lovely group of bridesmaids and my future mother-in-law gasped and oohed and ahhed at the dress.

Before I knew it I was in the second dress, which everyone adored, and I loved too.

I can't tell you how many we went through...talking about what we liked and didn't liked about each one, what I thought, what they thought, what Eric would think, what the ladies in the spot next to us thought.

I tried on a bunch of dresses, and it was very fun. There were some stressful moments, but it was basically like playing dress up with ball gowns that made you feel like a straight-up, real life, princess.

You basically get in a dress, come out, be the center of attention, and act like a model.


You end up feeling pretty fabulous and beautiful and lucky.

And then there's that one dress.


Lindsey strapped me in and I turned around to look in the mirror and I smiled so wide. It was that Cinderella moment I was waiting for.

I came out and everyone freaked out.


It was truly an intense moment, staring into the mirror and feeling like THIS was the dress.

My mom got there at that moment, and burst into tears when she saw me.

Which of course made me cry, which made everyone in the room cry.


So there was a lot of crying after that point.


One of the worst parts of the whole ordeal is the paralyzing fear that the dress you really, really love may not actually be THE ONE. (Kind of like...you know...GETTING MARRIED.)


So you decided to go find another twelve dresses and you try more and more on.

We did find one other one, that we had picked out mostly for fun because like, when are you ever going the get the chance to try on wedding dresses again?

It was a princess ballgown, and I legitimately have never felt more like a queen than at that moment when I spun around in that gorgeous damn dress.

But it didn't feel like me. It felt like me dressing up. Plus it was strapless and I knew I'd be thinking about it falling down or me popping out of it all night.


I went back and forth between the two, trying them on over and over.

It came down to three deciding factors:

1) My mom crying every time she saw me in dress #1
2) The bridal party saying they liked it
3) The group of women next to us giving me all the thumbs up on it


So at the end of the day, I walked away with a dress that made me feel like not just a queen, but Queen Marvyl Triscritti.

 



All in all, I'm glad that I had my bridesmaids, my mother, and my future mother-in-law there. I found a dress that I knew my friends, family, and Eric would love and on top of all one that made me feel wonderful.

Finding the right wedding dress is, you know, like finding the right guy.

You have this idea in your head what your perfect one is, and you try a bunch on and some of them are awful and some of them make you look fat and some of them are ok and some of them are really beautiful and perfect but they're not for you.

And then you find one and it makes you happy and gives you butterflies and makes you glow and you show it off to everyone you love and who cares about you and they tell you what they think and then you make really terrifying decisions about keeping it forever.

And there might be moments where you go over all the options in your head and wonder if you made the right decision because this is a really big fucking deal and then you look up and you see yourself in the dress (or you come home to your man, depending on what side of the metaphor you're on) and you just know that it is love. You know this is the ONE.



If you'd like to see the dresses that inspired me, check out my blog board on Pinterest: Follow Marvyl's board To Be Triscritti on Pinterest.


If you want to check out White Lace and Promises, you can here:

http://whitelacepromisesbridal.com/

Ask for Lindsey! She's the best!