By Amanda Parker
“The wedding is all about the bride, and for the bride, it’s all about the dress.” Thank you, David’s Bridal commercial — I couldn’t have put it any better myself!
Every girl pictures her wedding gown — how realistic that picture is…well, that’s a totally different story. Personally, my wedding gown was big and pink with a lot of sparkle and bling, kind of something you’d see on an ’80s Barbie doll. Of course I didn’t end up with a dress like that because Adam would have run out of that church as fast as he could possibly run.
So, I took my search to Pinterest (isn’t that what everyone does these days?). I mean, my wedding was practically already planned on my “I do” board even before I got a ring — even before I met Adam, for that matter. Naturally, I found the perfect dress…it was only $20,000 from a boutique in Italy. NEXT! I don’t think my dad would have gone for that one. Next, I found a beautiful oyster ball gown with a bow — I had to find it and try it on.
After telling myself over and over again that I wouldn’t be a crazy bride calling around, there I was, a crazy bride calling around. My lunch hour was spent, “Hi, do you have AV9110? The one with the bow?” I tried every bridal salon in the state — no luck — so I moved on to Massachusetts and found it. It was sure to be the one.
Before going to Massachusetts I went to a few bridal salons in Rhode Island just to look. After getting the dresses yanked and pulled and clamped up with chip clips these were my thoughts:
Mermaid style makes me look like Kim K from the back.
Tulle ballgown feels like I am a giant cupcake.
Trumpet…practically falling out of the dressing room!
This is harder than I thought.
One Saturday my mom, Adam’s mom and grandmother and my cousin, Sharon, took the ride up to Country Weddings Bridal Boutique in Hingham, Massachusetts to try on the dress. They take one bride at a time and it is by appointment only. They had the dress waiting for me when we walked in. With their assistance and recommendations, I picked out a few more to try, too.
So I put on the dress: It’s nice…it’s heavy…aren’t I supposed to cry or something? No tears, no OMGs. Nothing.
I tried on the other dresses and the only other one I liked was picked out by the sales girl (I actually disliked it on the hanger, but that’s why they work in a bridal salon and I don’t). It was perfect. It was blingy and so me. After an hour of going back and forth trying what I thought was the dress and the one the sales girl recommended, I finally said yes to the dress. Everyone cheered, and then my mom said, “Not so fast!” (She knows me all too well.) She told me I needed to sleep on it, and I really did. What I really needed to do was to break up with the original dress.
So after a week of going back and forth, back and forth, I finally decided on which one was right for me. It wasn’t the Pinterest dress.
My lesson learned was that it’s okay to go into a store and think you know exactly what you want. But, you need to try on other dresses to be sure. You can change your mind as many times as you want — just make sure you are 150 percent positive about your decision before you write out a deposit check.
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