Presenting....My dress!!!

After much debate, I have decided to post my dress.

Ok... well, kind of.

It's not me, its just other people in my dress.






*** I'm serious Mr.! if you are reading this, continue at your own risk!***






So here it is:




{Christine Farah via Ruffled}
{Christine Farah via Ruffled}
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How fabulous is it! I heart it.

At first I hated seeing other people in my dress... It made it feel less special somehow, but now I love it! I love seeing the way it looks in different context, on different brides, and at very different weddings.

Do you stalk your dress? How does it make you feel to see it on other brides?

My Something Blue

MY DRESS IS HERE! So I may or may not be wearing my wedding dress as I type this post. At first I considered, not opening it at all. Who was I kidding!?!? I ripped it open like a kid on Christmas morning. First of all, it fits like a glove. I don't even know if I need alterations.

Second, now what?!? My wedding isn't until May what am I suppose to do with her until then...

{Friends: The One With All The Dresses}
I did a little bit of googling and learned that depending on the dress, you can either keep your dress stored in a box/bag under your bed or hanging. However you shouldn't hang your dress for more than 6-7 months.

UNDER THE BED STORAGE

• If the dress has beading, pearls, sequins, rhinestones or anything else that makes it heavy it needs to be stored flat.
  
• If the dress has heavy fabric suspended relatively weak fabric, it is also a good candidate for the "under the bed" treatment. A heavy dress with narrow shoulder straps or a dress with net insets in the bodice are examples. You don't want the weight of the hanging dress to pull it apart.
• Wrap the dress in a white sheet, then store it under the bed. Mine came in a long, flat box but if you don't have one, you can pick up all sorts of under the storage at Target. This will protect the dress from cats and dust bunnies.
  
  HANGING IN A GARMENT BAG

• If your dress is relatively plain, check the fabric content. Natural fibers need to "breathe," which they cannot do in a synthetic garment bag. A dress of silk, linen, cotton, or wool should be wrapped in a cotton sheet. You can leave a plain, not-to-heavy dress on the hanger.
• If, however, your dress is good old polyester, with little or no trim, it can stay happily on its hanger in a garment bag for seven months. A very heavy dress might start to pull apart after seven years of this treatment, but polyester is remarkably stubborn stuff. A 100% polyester dress with no appliqued trim can be washed in the washing machine and allowed to drip dry, too.
• If your dress has a mixed fiber content, follow the procedure for the most demanding fiber.
  

For more info click here.

For now I am going to keep her hanging, however I think the safest bet will be to put her back in her box until the big day. My seamstress is coming out here this weekend to do my first fitting. I'll be sure to post pictures once I have another person around.

She's here!

When I finally got the email from Bliss letting me know that my dress had arrived at the bridal salon I was so happy I actually squealed. Mr. came running into the room and asked "Good news or Bad?" When I told him my dress had arrived, he gave me a hug and said " I am so proud of you!" (Is it possible to over-train a man?? hehehe.)

Back to the news at hand. I immediately emailed my seamstress Susan to set up an alteration date. Susan is A-MAzInG! She was not only able to travel to my house for the fitting which was so crucial since I was right in the middle of finals but she also volunteered to store my dress for me while I'm in Amsterdam. Did I mention she is A-Mazing!?!

Within hours of receiving the email I was plagued with second-thoughts! The washed over me and consumed my every thought. I couldn't study. I could barely even think straight. What if it wasn't THE dress!?!?

My three doubts about the dress were (1)the neckline. The neckline isn't a true sweetheart neckline, which I knew when I bought the dress so I was just hoping it would be a pretty easy alteration. (2) I wanted an all lace dress but Mr. P and my Momma P hated all-lace dresses. (No, Mr. P did not go wedding dress shopping with me but we did look at a few dresses in magazines together so I could get an idea of what he liked.) Lastly, and most importantly, the bottom of the dress isn't very full. The reality is, I don't really remember how full it is and it was like 5 sizes too big so I can't really get a sense from the pictures of how the bottom will sit.

Once I bought the dress I tried really really really really hard to stop actively looking for dresses but now that the dress is here all bets are off! I immediately started googling mermaid dresses to figure out what I really wanted.

The reality is, I love a full mermaid skirt, I mean have you seen the size of Vera Wang's Spring dresses!


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However, it just didn't seem practical to try and get a dress that size to Costa Rica. Also I am not sure I'm tall enough to carry it off so I decided to focus on a more modest skirt.

I love the shape of this Jim Heljm and I think it's a good compromise size. I just think she's so elegant, romantic and feminine:

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However, I think that it's also really important to look at real brides to get a sense of the way different shapes photograph and move throughout the day. Here are three of my very favorite real brides.

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1. The fullest - I love this tiered skirt. My dress isn't tiered but I also love the shape this dress gives the bride. I think this skirt has the most crinoline and I kind of the love that it doesn't need to be messed with in order to get that great shape. However my train is a little longer than this one so I have to figure out how that would look.

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2. Medium fullness - I think this dress is the closest to my own dress shape and if it isn't then I think it's the shape that I want the most!

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3. No fullness - This dress doesn't seem to have any crinoline and still has an amazing shape. I think this has a lot to do with the brides natural shape and the tiers of the skirt.

At the end of the day, I think its gonna come down to my budget versus my obsession with having the "perfect" dress. I haven't even met Susan but I get a great vibe from her (aka she answered my emails while on a Caribbean cruise and even apologized for taking 48 hours to respond!) and I think she'll be really helpful in deciding which of these looks will be best for me. I hope that this process of looking at dresses has helped me collect my thoughts so that I can both articulate my feelings and be at peace with whatever decision I make.

**I am obviously also trying to keep open the possibility that I will just love her once I get her on and perhaps I did pick the "perfect" dress.

How much did you alter you dress? Were you like me and still trying to change the dress months after you bought her or was she prefect the moment you put her on?

HauteLook Dress No. 2

I used the rest of my HauteLook $40 credit to buy another white dress! I've basically decided that I want to wear white my entire bridal weekend so I figured this would be another great addition!



I may not actually keep them both... It'll really depend on how they fit. Now if only I could depend on UPS to get them to me... sigh*

You win some, you lose some

Over a month ago I blogged about a gorgeous brooch I bought on hautelook. Unfortunately the brooch never came. Apparently Hautelook oversold the item and didn't have enough to send out to all their customers. :(

However Hautelook was super awesome about it and they gave me back my $20, plus an extra $20 for the inconvenience! YAY! I'm really hoping to hit up some flea markets this fall to find a replacement brooch but I already found this cutie on hautelook.


I think this would be a great dress for my wedding weekend. I kind of hate the way the this dress is styled in this picture,(as Michael Kors would say "Styling can make or break you outfit") but with a cute pair of sandals and a cute colorful necklace! I am not sure when I would wear it but it was only $25! Def worth it!

More Dress Love

A picture is worth a thousand words. This dress is just so pretty... It doesn't hurt that the bride is adorable.


{Style me Pretty}