Bride-to-be Blogger Carolyn: Quest for the Dress, Part 1

iStockphoto courtesy of ThinkStock.com.

Like many brides, I was pretty excited about going wedding dress shopping. I’m actually a little shocked I was able to get myself to wait until August to start. However, I love to do my research, and the extra months I waited gave me plenty of time to look up gown pictures and get an idea of what styles and designers I liked, and what I’d prefer to avoid.

My first day out was just a time to try on lots of different styles and ease my nerves a little bit. I didn’t realize how anxious I would be! I went with my matron of honor, Lisa, to a bridal salon in NJ that had some of the designers I researched. We must have gone on a slow day because the consultant really let me try on everything. I modeled everything from the big tulle dresses to lace sheaths. We didn’t leave that day with a dress, but, to be honest, we didn’t expect to. Although nothing really stuck out as a clear winner (or even runner up), I thought it was a perfect start to shopping.

That initial shopping trip was really just a “warm up” for dress shopping. Even though I ended up only spending two more days out before I found the dress (more on this later), they were marathon dress-shopping days. Dress shopping can be a little overwhelming so I highly recommend starting out the way I did. Trying on lots of different styles at one store let me ease in to dress shopping and opened my mind up to some styles I had actually discounted during my Internet search. Also, it made me way more effective on my future shopping trips because I had a good idea of what I wanted.

Did you find you kind of needed to warm up, too, when you started dress shopping? Did you find that some styles you had dismissed you actually ended up liking?

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