In this week’s countdown to our first wedding anniversary, as promised, I’m sharing a sneak peek into our wedding that took place last June.
Let’s talk about probably one of the most important part’s of a girl’s wedding day: The Dress.
I had a very specific idea in mind for my wedding dress. The trouble was, I couldn’t find this dress that I had imagined anywhere! Browsing Pinterest and what felt like hundreds of wedding dress shops online, I only found bits and pieces of what I thought would fit together to make the perfect wedding dress. But not THE dress. THE dress just didn’t seem to exist anywhere I looked.
These stunning brides heavily inspired the design that I ended up going for.
It wasn’t until my Mom, Dad, & I piled into the car and decided to drive almost two hours to Low’s Bridal in Brinkley, Arkansas. I remember that the small town of Brinkley seemed almost empty. There really wasn’t much to it, until we turned a corner and saw the lavish old train station turned bride to be’s dream come true. It was such a magical experience, walking into the salon and feasting our eyes on the antique decor as well as wedding dress after wedding dress after wedding dress. We hardly even knew where to begin! But thankfully we had an amazing saleswomen who helped make the task of finding the perfect dress MUCH easier.
The problem was, after several hours looking at and trying on dresses I still hadn’t found THE dress. I was starting to feel bad, worrying about wasting everyone’s time and having my parents drive so far, when I finally came across a dress with the most beautiful plain lace bodice I’d ever seen. The problem was I only liked the top portion of the dress. I thought it was stunning. Unfortunately the bottom was a ball gown made of TULLE. So so so so so so much tulle. Who in their right mind would want a BALL GOWN made of tulle? I can handle some tulle. But that was just a lot of it.
I tried it on anyway just to see what the top part would look like. That’s when I knew I had to make this dress, or at least part of it, work somehow.
I presented the idea to the sales associate that I would like to change the tulle to silk taffeta. She looked at the material and thought it may work, then brought the dress to the owner to see what she thought. After waiting for half an hour or so we heard word that the dress designer had been called and that they could do it! I took a leap of faith and decided on a wedding dress that I hadn’t actually seen the final product of yet, but I knew, or just really hoped, that it would be perfect. Because it this point it just had to!
Four months later my wedding dress arrived in Memphis and … well .. the silk taffeta wasn’t silk taffeta .. it was a heavy silk, but that ended up not bothering me a bit. I was too enthralled by the way it turned out to even notice the difference between the two because I couldn’t believe that I was holding the dress that I had dreamt about for so long.
In front of my parent’s bedroom mirror, I had that moment that you see in all of the bridal salon’s on “Say Yes to the Dress,” the this is the it moment. I may have shed a tear or two seeing myself in it after waiting so long. It was definitely worth the risk.
It really is a lot of pressure to pick out your wedding dress. If you’re like me, you’ve dreamt about it ever since you first dressed your Barbie up in her very own wedding dress. My advice to any bride searching for a gown is not to give up on that dream dress of yours! I couldn’t believe how easy it was for my dress to be changed so drastically.
Its truly a sad thing that you only get to wear your wedding dress once. But I had a really great “one time” in that white dress!
