I Have A Confession...

I'm not in love with my wedding dress.

Now as you pick your jaws up off the floor and before you kick me out of the brides-to-be club, let's start from the beginning.

Before Keegan and I even got engaged, I would save pictures of dresses while I was Stumbling around the Internet. I had a folder of bookmarked pages of dresses that I wanted to try on when Keegan eventually asked the question.

Then on October 7, Keegan popped the question. After figuring out the date and overall feeling of our wedding, I decided dress shopping would be the logical next step. Since my mom and sisters live in Missouri, while I'm currently stuck living in Mississippi, we figured the best time to dress shop would be right after the Christmas holiday while Keegan and I were visiting.

On that January day, we left Keegan with my dad to do manly things while my mom, sisters, and I drove to Jefferson City, MO where I had an appointment with Victoria's Bridal. We walked in, met my consultant, and got down to work. My consultant asked me words to describe my wedding, what kind of dresses I was looking for, and my price range. I told her that since Keegan would be buying my dress, I didn't want to go over $1,500 including alterations and tax. She told me that they "don't figure in those prices," so I figured she would pick dresses in the lower $1,000 range so that alterations and tax wouldn't put me over my budget. Mistake #1.

Let's step back a second. A few weeks before my appointment, I found a picture of THE DRESS.

Source

I emailed numerous bridal stores in both Mississippi and Missouri and Victoria's Bridal was the best bet. They didn't have THE DRESS, but they did have dresses by the designer, Allure Bridal. I was so focused on getting a dress similar to THE DRESS that I didn't really bring any more inspiration pictures or ideas. Mistake #2.

So after talking to my consultant, she brought in dresses similar to THE DRESS as well as ones that she picked out for me. I put on an all lace dress and automatically hated it. Of course I'm nowhere near sample size so the dress was too small for me, but it made me look pregnant. Not something I wanted to look like on my wedding day. As soon as I saw myself in the mirror, I didn't want to show my family, but since I had been talking about THE DRESS so much, I figured I should show them how it had become the HELL NO dress.

My consultant opened the doors slightly, my family saw for a split second, and the doors closed. All of a sudden my dress appointment had gone from a happy exciting experience to making me feel like a fat cow with no other dress inspiration in my head. My consultant asked me which dress I wanted to try on next and I honestly had no idea. I told her to pick ones that she thought would look good on me and we tried two or three more. One of the dresses ultimately became my dress.

This dress doesn't resemble in the slightest the dresses I had saved in my dress folder all those months ago. Instead of lace, there's beading. Instead of it fitting close to the body, it's an A-line. Because this dress was so far away from all of my inspiration pictures, I wasn't 100% sure how I felt in it. However, my mom liked, if not loved, it. My sisters showed a little interest in the dress which was more than they had showed for anything else. Since I got lukewarm approval from my sisters and mom, I bought it. Mistake #3. 

To be continued...