Wedding Wednesday! - Choosing Your Dream Wedding Dress
Hi everyone! I hope you are having a beautiful day today!
Comin’ at you again with Wedding Wednesdaaaaay! Every Wednesday I choose a topic from wedding planning and my personal process and share tips and stories! Today I will be talking about the process of finding my dream wedding dress! This is going to be a long story with lots of parts to it, so pop a squat, grab a glass of wine, light some candles and get cozy!
Typically you are supposed to purchase your wedding dress ideally 7-8 months before your day so you ensure you have time to have it made and make alterations if needed. I, however, am not your typical bride and I procrastinate everything! I kept putting it off and putting it off. I’m sure a lot of brides can relate to this, but I have struggled with my body confidence my entire life. I am definitely not the most confident about my body and I am very hard on myself, so I was having a really hard time getting excited about trying on wedding dresses. In March, I finally pulled the trigger to make some appointments to bridal salons in San Diego! My mom and I were going to make a little mother-daughter weekend trip out of it and spend the weekend in San Diego.
I made appointments at 3 bridal salons that were close in proximity to each other. I made one at BHLDN, which is Anthropologie’s sister company for wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses, wedding decor, and so much more. I had been following BHLDN for quite a while and I was so excited to shop for dresses there.
Next, I made an appointment for right after at a salon that was just 10 minutes away from BHLDN. I am choosing to keep this salon nameless and you will know why in a little! For now, we will give this salon a fake name of….. Pumpkin! (I’m staring at tiny little pumpkins on my coffee table and smelling a pumpkin candle, don’t judge me.)
One of my bridesmaids, Kaylyn, got her wedding dress at a salon called The Bustle, located in Del Mar and had nothing but amazing things to say about it. She highly encouraged me to make an appointment with them because she had such a wonderful experience. I also trust Kaylyn with everything she suggests because she has amazing taste and has never steered me wrong. The Bustle was located on our way home from San Diego, so I made an appointment for Sunday when we were headed back to Orange County.
My mom and I made a hotel reservation at one of my absolute favorite hotels, Pendry San Diego! (See my review of Pendy here!)
During my wedding planning process, I was really missing my sisters and not being able to do everything with them was hard. I would have loved to have my sisters there to shop for my wedding gown, but we all have jobs and it’s so hard to get away to go half way across the country, which I completely understand. I kept thinking in my head “wouldn’t it be amazing if they surprised me……nooo it’s not possible. No way.”
When my mom picked me up to head to San Diego, I halfway expected my sisters to be in the car to surprise me, but they weren’t, so I let it go and stopped thinking of scenarios in my head that they were going to surprise me. As we are making the 2 hour drive, my mom informed me that we were meeting her dear long time friend, Anna, at the hotel bar for a drink and I could even see the texts from Anna come through and say “so excited to see you!” so i didn’t suspect a thing. We get to the hotel and my mom pulls me to the bar, saying she spots Anna. I turn the corner and see MY SISTER sitting at a table!! I squeal in the bar and run over to hug her and she has champagne waiting for us. My heart was so happy. We were missing our other sister, but I was so happy at least one of them could come. My mother being the amazing person that she is literally brought bags and bags of goodies and we had the BEST night watching My Best Friend’s Wedding, looking at bridal magazines, drinking wine and eating delicious charcuterie boards.
The next morning, my sweet sister surprised me with a trip to the salon to get my hair blown out and makeup done to feel beautiful for the day! *Tip - I highly recommend doing this the day you go dress shopping! It really gets you in the spirit of being a bride and starts off the day making you feel really, really good.. and pampered! Who doesn’t want to be pampered??
We were off to BHLDN first and I was so giddy with excitement. We were greeted by the sweetest stylist, Macey, who was so welcoming and made us feel so comfortable. Something that really stuck out to me about BHLDN was their process of booking an appointment. They have you fill out a questionnaire and choose some of your favorite dresses from their website to ensure they have them at the location you go to, since they don’t carry every single dress in stores. I thought that was such a great idea so you aren’t disappointed if the dress you had your eye on isn’t there - this way it’s guaranteed to be!
The first two dresses I tried on were the traditional ball gowns which is the style I really wanted and always dreamt about. They were BEAUTIFUL gowns, however, they were not compatible with my body. The third dress I tried on was an ivory & champagne A line style gown with gorgeous embroidered detailing on the bodice and a small train in the back. The first thing I noticed about this dress was how comfortable it was! Since I have an hour glass figure, I liked how it hugged my curves and outlined my shape.
Here is where I kind of made the mistake that every bride should not make… It was the third dress I tried on EVER, and since I did not like the first 2 at all, I thought “Oh I like this! It’s cute! This is it! This is the dress!” And right there I said yes to the dress, 3 dresses in at the FIRST bridal salon on our agenda out of three. Since my parents were already doing so much for me, I really wanted to keep the budget in mind when finding a dress and try to keep it lower, since bridal gowns can very easily be thousands and thousands of dollars. This one was a great price and was even on sale, so we bought it and left! Since they have cancellation policies, we still had to go to the other appointments, so we did.
When we got to the second salon, Pumpkin*, we were immediately turned off. One of the stylists came up to me and said “Omg are you my girl?! Are you Jamie?!” I said “No, I’m Bliss!” She immediately killed the smile on her face and said “oh, nevermind,” rolled her eyes and walked away. We wandered around the store waiting for someone to greet us. I felt so dismissed and not special at all. I did not like any of their gowns, but I chose a few on anyways for show. There was a massive group taking up half of the store, so we were stuck in the tiniest dressing room. My stylist barely spoke to me and barely cracked a smile. After only a couple dresses, we left Pumpkin with the weirdest feeling and I knew I made the right decision at BHLDN. As turned off I was at Pumpkin, I chose to not share the name because I do not want to stop people from going there and/or hurt their business.
The next day, my sister sadly had to hop on an early morning flight. My mom and I had brunch at the hotel and headed to our final appointment. I still felt like I made the right dress decision and I wasn’t regretting it at all. We got to The Bustle and I felt so welcome. My stylist, Mariah, made me feel amazing. She was so inviting and so excited to help me. You have your own, completely private, dressing room suite with 2 long racks on the walls of gowns to choose from. My mom asked me several times if I wanted to try on more dresses just to be sure, but my stubborn self of course said no. We explained to Mariah that I found my dress yesterday, but I was still in need of a veil and accessories! She was SO understanding and was so excited. I have always envisioned a long, cathedral length veil that just flows down the aisle. My nick name when I was little was Sparkle Princess, so I absolutely wanted it to shine. The very first veil Mariah brought out took my breath away. It had the most gorgeous train and was covered in crystals. It was everything I wanted and more, I had my first emotional, bridal moment when I saw it on me. We ended up adding more crystals to it as well as a blusher, so it took about 2 months to be made and be shipped to us, which was great!
Fast forward to a week later, my dress came in the mail! BHLDN shipped it so fast, I was so impressed. It was shipped to my dad’s house and was so excited to go open it. When I got to the package, I had this weird feeling in my stomach, “would it look the same?” “will I have the same feeling of loving it?” “what if I don’t love it anymore? what will I do?” I immediately opened the box and my stomach dropped. While it was still an absolutely stunning dress and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, it did not feel like my wedding dress. It was not the long ball gown I had always dreamt of for my wedding dress. My dad told me to try it on and I didn’t even want to do that. It just didn’t feel like my dress.
I hung it in the closet of one of the guest bedrooms and just kind of hid it away.
Fast forward to July. I had a pit in my stomach for months about my wedding dress and I expressed concerns to my mom that it wasn’t what I wanted. We decided to make an appointment at The Bustle to try and tweak it. Maybe adding more layers of tulle, maybe adding a poofy underskirt to make it more of a ball gown, maybe adding sleeves?? We wanted to try anything.
We drove down to Del Mar and brought Kaylyn with us since she had been there before and I need an opinion that wasn’t going to be biased (no offense, mom!). Mariah was with us to help us however she could to make me love my dress. I put on the dress and I just wanted to take it off. I was so uncomfortable, my shoulders were so shrugged up and it was nothing like what I wanted. I couldn’t understand why because it was so beautiful and I wanted to love it so much. We added a slip with extra layers of tulle, we looked into adding thicker straps, we tried everything. Finally Kaylyn said, “I think we need to try on more dresses.” I was hesitant since we already spent money on this one, but we all knew it was the right thing to do. I figured we had time running out in our appointment, so I asked if we had enough time left. My wonderful mother knows me and can read me so well, she informed me that she called The Bustle a week ago and had them change my appointment to an hour and a half and told them we were going to try on more dresses. I immediately took the dress off and anxiously waited for Mariah and Kaylyn to bring up some dresses.
Kaylyn got married in March and looked like an absolute ANGEL in her Stella York wedding gown (See her wedding feature on Style Me Pretty here!). The dress was made for her and she was the epitome of bridal beauty. Kaylyn being the absolutely incredible friend that she is, brought up her exact same dress! Seriously, who does that?! It takes a very special person, like Kaylyn, to be okay with a friend wearing your exact wedding dress.
In addition to Kaylyn’s dress, they brought up some more ball gowns as well as other styles I hadn’t tried yet. I tried Kaylyn’s on first and it did not look as good on me as it did on her, so we scratched that one! The next dress I put on was an all white Stella York ballgown. It had a sweetheart neckline with a lace bodice, layers of frothy tulle with asymmetrical horsehair hemlines. The second I put it on, it felt like a hug. It was hugging my body so well and was light as air. I stepped out of the dressing room and my emotions completely overwhelmed me. I’m not sure if it was the look on my mom’s face, the sparkles hidden in the lace or the light weight feeling of it, I completely broke down in tears. This was the dress . of . my . dreams. My shoulders came back down to earth and my face completely lit up. I danced in it, I was smiling and laughing, I was a completely different person, even Mariah said I wasn’t the same person from before! I felt beautiful, I felt comfortable, I felt like a bride. My veil had come in, so we put on the veil and the look was complete. I remember saying to my mom “I feel like I could go to my wedding right now, that’s how amazing I feel.”
Now, after I came back down to earth, the reality of buying a new dress started to dawn on me…. 1 - I don’t even know the price. This could be a $5,000-$10,000 dress that I just fell in love with. Mariah checked the price and it was the perfect price. 2 - My wedding is in 2 months. There is NO way having this dress is possible. This was just too good to be true. Mariah said “this dress just came in 2 weeks ago and hasn’t even been tried on, you can purchase this one off the rack and have it altered.” I honestly thought I just hallucinated her saying that. There was no way that was possible. There was no way that literally everything just lined up to be perfect. “What did I do to deserve this??” I thought.
We purchased the dress and went to grab some lunch in the area after. We, of course, toasted with champagne to celebrate! I felt so giddy!!!! I felt like a bride and I finally had that feeling of excitement over my dress I was so desperately trying to feel before. I still get emotional thinking about that day because it was just so special to me. Mariah, Kaylyn, and my mom all came together to make sure I looked and felt exactly how I had envisioned of looking on my wedding day my entire life.
For the next 2 months, my mom and I made the drive to Del Mar every 2 weeks for dress fittings with Angie, who does all the alterations for The Bustle and has an alterations store right next door. My mom and I had so much fun going to Del Mar and having our little “Del Mar tradition” each time. We would go to my appointment and right after we would go to lunch at Jake’s, an amazing restaurant right on the beach with the BEST food! It became our little tradition and we would have so much fun drinking iced tea on the patio while wedding planning.
Angie did an absolutely incredible job altering my dress. She listened to everything I said and made every adjustment I needed. She hemmed it absolutely perfectly and added a lace up corset to the back.
I cannot thank Mariah & Angie enough. They truly made my wedding dress dreams come true and I couldn’t have done it without Angie’s talent and Mariah’s constant support, amazing, positive attitude, help, and being there for every single appointment. My dress was everything that I wanted and more and it was also the exact dress Justin envisioned me walking down the aisle in. It was perfect.
OKAY!!!! Whew!!! Are you still there?? I know that was long… but I did warn you! I really couldn’t cut this story down, nor did I want to, because it is so important for brides searching for their wedding dress and if this post can help just ONE bride find the dress of her dreams, that’s more than enough for me.
Time for tips!
DO. NOT. SETTLE. Even if you have to go to 50 different bridal salons, do NOT settle on one just because you are sick of putting on wedding dresses or your self conscious of your body. I promise you, your dress is out there. The perfect dress is out there.
Become friends with your stylist! Having Mariah as my stylist really made my experience that much more enjoyable. Especially if you’re getting your alterations done at the same salon, you’re going to spend a lot of time with this person! They are going to be a part of your wedding journey forever, so become friends with them!
Wear comfortable and nude color under garments and a strapless bra! It totally throws off the wedding gown vibe if you have bright pink bra and under garments showing through your gown!
Know your budget. Please, I beg of you…. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT try on a dress you know is way over your budget “just to try it on for fun” because yes, you will fall in love with it! Be honest with your stylist about your budget and they will certainly work within the budget or as close as they possibly can.
Have fun! Bring whoever you can with you, your mom, grandma, bridesmaids, aunt, neighbor, boss, stranger you just met (lol don’t actually do that), whoever you KNOW is going to make it a fun experience. If you have a strongly opinionated cousin that’s in your bridal party or an aunt that has no filter and tells you when those pants do make your booty look big, leave them at home!!! Only bring people you know are going to make it about YOU and make sure you take home the exact dress you want.
I also want to take a moment to say that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my BHLDN dress and there was absolutely nothing wrong with them as a business. This post is not meant to bash BHLDN in any way, shape, or form. Everyone I worked with were all phenomenal and Macey was such a wonderful stylist to work with. The dress just wasn’t meant for me, and that’s okay! I still look at BHLDN’s instagram every day admiring their beautiful dresses and amazing wedding decor (I bought so much of their decor for my wedding!).
Okay… I know that was an extremely long post and THANK YOU if you are still reading! I hope this post inspires you to find your dream dress. You deserve to look exactly how you always envisioned and nothing less.
