Wedding Dress Shopping

It is official. Matt and I are getting married.

I chose the dress!

Obviously, I can't say anything about it here... But I'll tell you about the day.

I planned the big wedding dress shopping weekend for a weekend that Matt was going to be away. I emailed my  mom, Matt's parents, and my MOH, Lauren, and hoped they would all be available that weekend. As rarely happened-- the stars aligned and everyone was available! Lauren came for the whole weekend (which was great since she is about to move to Tampa, Florida to start a new job) and my mom and Lizzy met us at the apartment before going to our first bridal salon of the day. Dan met us at the store and stayed for 12 try-ons before he had to leave.

The first store we went to was Fiori in Essex Junction, VT. I'll tell you right now that this store had, hands down, the best service (possible of any store I have ever been to). I was helped by Josie, though every associate in the store was choosing dresses and running back out to see me in them. Lauren, the moms, and Dan sat on the big comfy couch while I did my fashion show. Lauren kept fastidious notes on each and every dress marking down what number it was, a quick description, and whatever we said about it. She has some pretty good quotes of the day (such as-- look! I'm wearing a nightgown...). As I said earlier I tried on 12 dresses while Dan was there. He left. I tried on dress number 13 and instantly tears came to my eyes. I saw it. I saw me in it. I envisioned, for the first and only time of the day, me walking down the aisle towards Matthew. (Lauren's notes read, "TEARS!!!") It was the one. I could have stopped right there but I already had appointments at two other stores (and trying on dresses was super fun!).

We left Fiori and headed down to Church St. in Burlington where we snuck in a quick, much needed, lunch and went into store number 2, Sewly Yours/ Once Upon a Bride. This store was so completley different than Fiori. They do a lot of the alterations themselves and even have some original dresses. They instruct every patron and employee to wear white gloves when touching the dresses. It was a very different experience. I tried on 19 dresses at this store.

When we left Once Upon a Bride we stopped for a quick ice coffee and headed to Neadleman's in South Burlington. Again, we had a completely different experience. Like in Fiori we were the only patron in the store for most of the time and had the full attention of all of the (2) associates. Here I tried on 16 dresses, including the Kate Middleton copycat dress, and tiara and copycat ring from Claires (which one of the associates let me borrow for the pictures) and did quite the dress-up-esque photo shoot.

We then returned home to be joined by my dad and Dan who looked through some of the many, many, many pictures taken from the day. We then headed to a, once again much needed, meal.

As you can imagine with 48 dresses, it was a truly exhausting day- both physically and emotionally. but...

I FOUND MY DRESS! and it is the best one ever! (obviously no picture!)