Wooohooo! I found it! I found it!!! You are now looking at the proud owner of a beautiful wedding dress…and just in time, too!

For those of you reading who haven’t been following the wedding saga, I realized last week that ‘OMG! If I don’t pick a dress soon, I’m not going to have one AT ALL!’. My panic was well expressed in this post. I seriously thought that I could have my dress in-hand in 3 months time. My, my…how wrong I was. Apparently, the time frame is 6 months! Hurry! Hurry!

So this is what I did: I went back to the original boutique. All the others I visited were a bit ‘Meh’ for me. High prices for inferior fabrics, or waaayyyy too focused on the princess story. Being in my late 30’s, I really have no need to re-inact a disney movie and look quite preposterous in some of the ballgowns. Bigger is not always better. Not for me anyway.

At this boutique, I had fallen in love with a few gowns and had to leave without trying some of them on due to time constraints. So I went back, and I picked my dress loves and we all went into the fitting room together. There is truly nothing quite like having a wall of  wedding dresses waiting for your opinion. I love it. Champagne helps.

Here are some that I absolutely adore (I wasn’t able to include all of them, as some look like a solid wall of veil – which I’m guessing nobody wants to see).

I was swooning for this gown. We did have a battle over undergarments. I’m sorry, but I will NOT be wearing a hoop! Let it hang… 🙂

Feeling a bit ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’ but it is age-appropriate.

Flow-y makes my heart sing 🙂 Don’t mind the mess in the back, that was for sizing purposes.

Oh…Glamour, detail and gold…how I love thee! A bit cozy around the hips, but just look at it!

Ah…the romance of lace! I love it, like really love it. But I fear my fiancé will tell me I look like a table cloth. And then I will have to use it against him for the rest of his life.

Aaaand throw in a bit of Old Hollywood in the mix for good measure 😉

A few things. I know I said I didn’t want strapless. And I tried, I really did! These 2 strapless dresses are the only strapless ones I tried. And the reason being? The bodice is so tight, it’s not going A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E, possibly not even a comfortable sitting position if I don’t do a emergency slim down of 1-2 cm’s.

I did, in fact, have The Moment! I cried. Not crocodile tears, but enough to know that ‘this is my dress’! It’s so hard to explain. I tried on a coordinating veil with each dress I loved. But when I looked in the mirror and saw myself in The Dress with the veil, it was like I knew that this dress would be carrying me down the aisle. I was so lucky to have my mother with me who was helping me by taking photos and I heard, can’t you smile? Why can’t you smile? And I just couldn’t say anything. My eyes welled up with tears while I stared at myself in the mirror and thought about walking down the aisle to the man I love. It was…surreal.

Ironically, the dress I chose (or that chose me) is not something I would normally go for. So I’m really glad I went in with an open mind and looked for dresses outside of my comfort zone. Otherwise, I never would have found this beauty. And I did not want to take the dress off. When the associate asked me if this was the dress I wanted, I said that the tears spoke for themselves and that is a clear sign to me that you need this dress. THIS ONE! She was a real doll, by the way, the sales associate. When I cried, she cried too. And then we all laughed about how overtly emotional we got.

So what do you think? Any favourites?

Which one do you think is The One?

-Mliae

P.S.- The feature photo (hanging dress I’m not in) is a diversion tactic in case fiancé finds himself scrolling through the blog. He’ll think thats the one and will be so surprised when the big day comes! 😉

*Feature photo by Sharla Stenersen Photography