First Dress Shopping Experience

Heavenly - Yesterday I went for my first dress shopping experience with my mom and my good friend Emma. We went to Felicity Bridal on Hollis Street and they gave us a wonderful experience (I've heard mixed reviews about Winchester's).

I have a pretty solid idea of what I want to look like on my wedding day, which somewhat differs from what Josh would want me to look like on my wedding day, but its the dress i've been dreaming about my whole life so obviously I'm going to choose what I want. I've always wanted a timeless dress, I'm not into these new trends like feathers and lots of pickups. I love a good old fashion lace dress that is romantic and sexy in its simplicity. Josh loves satin a-lines and ball gowns (god help me). I didn't want to limit myself though in my first shopping experience and I wanted to make sure I actually did like what I thought I liked going into it, so I tried on lace, satin, chiffon and all different cuts. Turns out I look good in what I thought I liked.

I ended up falling in love with the first dress I tried on, which I feel like no girl really wants to do but I proceeded to try on seven or so more dresses to try and beat it with no such luck. I found two favorites but the first one just stole my heart. I'm obviously not going to post pictures of my favorites because 1. Josh reads the blog and 2. I want to keep it as much of a surprise as possible.

To try and combat Josh's love for big gowns I tried on a very full skirted dress with a cathedral train. Gorgeous dress but it swallowed me whole and I hate heavy dresses! I think I got my point across when I showed him the picture. I also tried on a mermaid and while I loved how it showed off my curves particularly my child bearing hips, I felt like a penguin and if I can't walk in a dress, then I certainly wont be able to dance in one. I also decided I didn't like empire waist that flares out from there, which surprised me because a lot of dresses I loved in looking at magazines were this waistline.

I really liked only having two people with me for my first time trying on dresses. It was nice to not have a million opinions thrown at me and to find out exactly what I WANT before I bring the whole motley crue with me. Too often I see girls trying to put you in their dream dresses but I'm pretty good at putting people in their place so I'm not too concerned about it, plus all my girls know exactly what I want but it was a peaceful and nice experience with just Mom and Emma!

Overall, I was thrilled with the shop, the bridal consultant and my first shopping experience, overall. I still plan to go to Winchester's to see the rest of my options but I'm pretty obsessed with the first dress!

Here are some pictures:

 the only satin dress i tried on... it was aiight

the beast dress to show josh how ugly it was

The mermaid, so uncomfortable

The Hardware

I should start by saying that every girl is different. With that said, this was my experience with the ring:

I've known for a very long time that I would marry Josh, earlier than I ever expected to feel that gut feeling.  At first I really loved the idea of the ring being a complete surprise to me. I thought it would be nice for Josh to be able to choose whatever he wanted to give me. Then he dropped a bomb on me that changed my mind on that forever, he told me he liked "topsy turvy rings" as I like to call them. They are those rings where one side of the band wraps around the top of the diamond and the other side of the band wraps around the bottom of the diamond. They are becoming popular right now and they are not my thing AT ALL.  At that point, I didn't want to take complete control from him, but I definitely needed to steer him in the right direction, because after all this is a piece of jewellery I am going to be wearing for the rest of my life.

The next route we took was that Josh sent me a bunch of pictures of rings in a variety of styles I chose which styles I liked and despised. Then he got me to send him 10 rings that I liked without saying which ones are my preferences. He also asked me to describe my perfect ring, I said vintage, dainty and sparkly lol.  He ended up buying me my favorite without even knowing it.

The big thing you need to think about is price and carat. Josh was under the impression that all men spend around $10,000, for some woman this misconception would be a blessing, however, for me I was like if you dare spend that much money on something like a ring I will kill you. I didn't want this massive diamond on my finger because i'm not a jewellery person and I would be paranoid walking around with that on my hand everyday. Plus my big mentality is the less money that is spent on the ring, the more money that can be spent on the dress and the wedding itself. If you want more bang for your buck go with a sidestone style, it makes it look like there is more diamond in total than there actually is. My ring is also made up of Canadian Diamonds, which means that they are clearer and more sparkly.

My ring is intricate, with a beautiful vintage design and lots of detail and we can still afford to buy groceries next week.  My best piece of advice, is give the men or women in your life an idea of what you  like. Its fine to want it to be a surprise, but remember that you have to wear it for the rest of your life!!!