Bride-to-be Blogger Kathleen: The Dress Hunt Ends

iStockphoto courtesy of ThinkStock.com.

Sometimes, all you have to do is trust yourself.

I’ve been on the dress hunt since August, and during all of that time, I could have just been a bit more “adult-like” and called some shops to see if they carried a certain dress line. You see, for some reason Watters’ dress location-finder wasn’t working on my computer, and there were about 10 dresses from the WTOO line that I loved. So, instead of picking up the phone and asking the stores if they carried the dresses, I just went to whatever dress shops I could find within the area that were in my price range. And of course I was unsuccessful, because the whole time I kept saying to myself, “I really like those dresses I saw online.” Sure, bringing the printed-out photos helped, but I kept coming up short. Until one day, I came across a shop in Marlton that carried the WTOO line.

I arrived at the Bridal Garden with my maid of honor and had a slight feeling of relief. Not only because we managed not to get lost (two Philly girls driving around in no-left-hand-turn New Jersey using cell phone navigation doesn’t always have the highest success rates), but because the brick building seemed legit and welcoming. No strip mall, no giant purple-ish pink building in the middle of nowhere, just a nice brick building with white columns and beautiful hardwood floors. Everyone in the store was super nice, and when it came time to show my consultant the pictures I had been carrying around for months, I heard a set of unfamiliar words: “We have that dress.” I’m sorry, what was that? You have a dress that is like this dress, or you literally have this dress in the store? They literally had every dress I liked from the website. Finally, a fun and exciting dress appointment!

I tried on about 10 dresses, all from the WTOO line. All of them under my price point, all of them perfect in their own little ways. I was able to narrow down the selection to just two dresses, but then I hit a wall. I knew one of them was going to be the dress, but how would I choose? The consultant and my MOH both agreed that I couldn’t make a “wrong” choice, and, really, both dresses were perfect, in my eyes. I stood in front of the mirror in one dress with the consultant holding the other dress up next to me, and with my head tilted slightly to the right, I said to myself, Here is your chance to not do the expected, pick the dress that isn’t the safe bet. And I did.

{And just a quick FYI for all you ladies who are, like me, buying your own dress, or just looking for a great deal, in case you didn’t know: You will not pay any sales tax on a bridal gown if you purchase it in New Jersey. New Jersey does not consider it to be a “luxury” item.}

Was there a moment in your dress shopping where everything finally started to make sense? Anything you wish you had done differently a little earlier in the process?

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