the dress.

Dear Mr. Gloss,
If you are for some reason reading this right now, this is your hint to stop, really, or I will hurt you...... and then make you buy me a new dress.


Well ladies, here is the dress story:
I 'ran with the brides', except I didn't really run - I waited until everyone else ran and then rolled in with my girls around 10. It was REDICULOUS, it was me, my mom, my MOH, one of my bridesmaids and a friend from work. As I said, the doors opened at 8AM, some brides and their troops had been there since 3AM!!! (That is determination!!)

Not us! We like sleeping in...by the time we arrived there were no lines to wait in which was great, except almost all the dresses were gone from the racks! Everyone who had arrived early had grabbed as many dresses as they were able and were guarding their stockpiles of dresses. It was SO overwhelming, I really had no idea where to start, but we fanned out and went our separate ways to search (armed with walkie-talkies and one really loud bridesmaid). After about the first 5 minues of aimless walking through emptyish racks, I basically stood in an area and my talented troops brought me dresses. They knew roughly what I was looking for (which really wasn't what I bought) because we had a giant sleepover at my place the night before and I had put together a power-point of potential dress candidates. (I'm really not that OCD, power point= download pics off the internet and ripped from magazines, it was really more of a slide show, and they had requested it to help to know what to find!)

I tried on A LOT of dresses; it was like a speed trial for dress shopping. Honestly, they probably brought me like 60 dresses, and I tried them all on (it was exhausting).
TRF (totally random fact): I ended up buying the ONLY dress I had picked out for myself, the girl next to me tried it on and didn't like the way it fit. It looked kind of interesting and I didn't see any of my ladies coming with new dresses and it was uncomfortable standing there with very little on, so I asked if I could try it on. She said "Yes", that she wasn't going to buy it. She said YES!!

I'm not a very small girl, I've always been at the large end of the retail rack being close to six feet tall. Now, here comes the magic part, she was maybe 4-6 sizes smaller than me at least and the dress was too long but fit her pretty well. Everyone says bridal sizes run small - so i was expecting to have to up-size BUT this dress is a size SMALLER than my actual dress size (um, SOLD). I really think it was magic - a little like 'the sisterhood of the traveling pants'. If retailers were smart they would label all their dresses a size or two down :)

So, without further ado - I present my dress :
Her name is Eudora and she was lovingly made by the amazing Melissa Sweet.

(and because I heart a bargain, the retail on the dress is $4600 and I paid $725 after taxes.)

the backthe sweet little chapel train

the front

the top

bottom front

and the full back

It's difficult to see the detail but the basic construction is three layers off tulle with lace applied to the middle layer. The lace is more dense at the top of the dress and disperses as it travels downward.

It's totally not what I pictured myself wearing, but I love how romantic it feels and the tulle makes it SO much fun to wear - I feel like I little girl twirling around in a tutu when I wear it. What do you guys think? Did I miss out by not having the boutique bridal experience? Or do you have a crazy dress story as well?