This is the final dress. It ended up being a different one from any of the others I’ve previously posted. Of course. lol. John, you are not allowed to read after this.

SERIOUSLY JOHN LOOK AWAY.

Here are the shoes I’m going to wear. It was hilarious because I looked and looked and looked for white closed toe shoes, and couldn’t find ANYTHING. Then I looked in this kind of ghetto store and found these for $20. WIN! And they’re very comfy.

Ok, dress time!

Front

Back

These pics were taken by the tailor during the dress fitting. That’s what the line down at the bottom is. It won’t be there for the wedding. And they’re crappy camera phone pics, so sorry about that.

FROM HERE ON OUT, JOHN IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO READ THIS BLOG.

Just to fill up some space…maybe even take up enough so that he’d have to scroll to see the potential dress pictures, here is what I designed for my senior show, when I presented “A Wedding in a Box.”  I got engaged during my senior year of college, and it was all I could think about.  So when we had to decide on a multi-piece design project for school, of course I chose to design my wedding!  It’s kind of interesting to see how much of my real wedding I can actually make match my imaginary one.

This was my whole set up. I designed the reception table, centerpiece, the favors (magnetic paper dolls of the happy couple) the invitations, a scrapbook that told our story, and even the dresses that the bride, bridesmaids and flower girl would wear.

This is what the table looked like. I pretty much made everything on this table; the napkins, the table cloth, the book itself for the scrapbook, I put together the centerpiece, and I drew the magnetic dolls. I still like most of this, but I’m not so sure about the ivy anymore. And I think I would replace the pink flowers under the centerpiece and fill the bowl with water. Then raise the couple higher and put floating flowers on the water.

Closeup of the dresses I designed.

OK JOHN, LAST CHANCE TO STOP LOOKING.

John’s mom and I (and my friend Jess) went wedding dress shopping last Saturday, (Not yesterday Saturday) and I tried on a tooooon of dresses. OMG I was so sick of dress shopping! And I am a picky person, so a lot didn’t make the cut. But here are the finalists:

This was my favorite (and I think Jess’) from Alfred Angelos.

This was John’s mom’s favorite. I think it looks a little too modern/trendy for my taste though. My mom and dad call it the “JLo Dress” because my dad thinks it shows off my butt!  Also, I would not have that brown color on the sash, but pink.  They just had the example dress in brown.

My favorite from David’s Bridal. (Here, have another look at it.) The sales woman took this off the maniquin, and I was beyond S-H-O-C-K-E-D to find out that it cost $1,000. OF COURSE this was after I saw myself in it. Ugh. This is probably the one that closest mimics the dress I designed in college.  It doesn’t really go in at my hips like that…it’s just my hands that make it look like it does.

This is my mom’s favorite from David’s Bridal. What’s cool about this dress is that it looks like someone took antique lace from an old dress and included it in this one. The photo doesn’t do the dress justice.  (Mental note?)

So that’s them! My friend Jackie says that the fact that I’m having a hard time choosing between my two favs means I haven’t found the right dress yet. Let’s hope not…

PS: MOM TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR DRESS AS IT IS NOW AND SEND IT TO ME ALREADY! :p

I was originally thinking of waiting until my Mom came up to visit me in May to go dress shopping, but then I realized that would be less than four months before the wedding IF we found a dress. So I had a quick panic attack, and called her up so we could go dress shopping online together. The first place we looked was Alfred Angelo, and wouldn’t you know it (this is just like me) we looked tons of other places too, and this was the only site I found dresses I liked. Always at the first place, always. *shakes head*

I think this one was our favorite. Isn’t it pretty? I love the details! You’ll notice with all the dresses I’ve chosen, there is a little bit of pink. Even when I designed my wedding dress in college, I included color!

This one is probably the closest to the one I designed in college, except the bow was in the back. And the one I designed didn’t have a train. My mom thinks all these trains might not do so well with the outdoor wedding we’d like to have. I never thought of that…

I thought the detailing on this one was nice, but I don’t think my mom thought too much of it. She moved on pretty quickly to the next one when I told her to click on it, lol.

We both loved this for the flower girl’s dress. It’s got little flowers on the skirt! How adorable.

I think this matches the bride’s maid dress I designed, but I’ll have to go back and look. I don’t really remember. Ah, I graduated only 3 years ago, and the memories are already fading. I might have the maid of honor and one bride’s maid. If that is the case, one will wear a pink dress, and one will wear a grey one. Otherwise…I guess it will be up to my maid of honor which color she’d like. Hooray flexibility!

And then we found a site where people could create their own profiles and share stories and photos about their wedding. Of course though, I didn’t save the link. I’m so mad about that too. I think my mom did, so I’ll see if I can get it from her. Anyway, this one woman posted her hair picture and I FELL IN LOVE.

Dress photos from Alfred Angelo’s site, edited by me.