Let's play dress-up!

If you remember from one of my earlier posts about dresses, my mom lives well over 1000 miles away.  She was able to be around for the first time I tried on dresses, and that was great, but having her miss out on the other shopping trips is going to be hard.

Now that we have decided a bit more about our wedding, and have an actual idea of what it is going to look like, my ideas on dresses have changed a bit.  While I still don't want the whole churchy wedding dress, I feel like the personality of the dress could come out a little more, and it could be a little more fun versus the plain and simple ones I tried on on my first shopping experience.

I asked FMIL to join me on this dress hunt, as she was there the first time, and is really the only person I have around that could go with me. MOH E lives in Indiana, and BM A lives in New York, so those options are kind of out of the question at this point.  But, FMIL said she would love to go, so we took a drive back to the first shop we went to, as they had they designers I was interested in.

I tried on more than ten dresses, but only got a picture of three of them, as they were the only three that were picture worthy.  Oh, and they let me take pictures this time since my mom wasn't there, so they weren't actually snuck this time.

Since this was the same shop I had visited earlier, I asked the consultant to pull the dress I liked best from the last appointment, the Jim Hjelm Blush 1103.

Jim Hjelm Blush 1103 / Personal Picture

I tried it on and really liked again, but then the bad news came from the consultant.  The dress was no longer available in white and could only be ordered in ivory. That was it for me, the dress was taken off of me and my list. I wanted a white dress, and while the ivory color looked good on me, it actually didn't look as good as white did.  So, we moved on.

This next dress we tried on was more for the style than the actual dress, as I wanted to try a one-shoulder dress to see how it looked.

Pronovias "Paris" / Personal Picture

This dress was very pretty, and I loved the one-shoulder look. It was very comfortable, but the dress itself was a little too drapey, and the pleats going down the middle of the back made my hips look really wide, and I wasn't too much a fan of that. They are wide enough as is, they don't need more accentuation!

The dress dress I tried on was a little more fitted, but had a fun personality in the skirt and on the bust, and a criss-cross bodice, which looked pretty good on me when I tried that on previously.

Pronovias "Papira" / Personal Picture

Pronovias "Papira" / Personal Picture

When I tried it on, we all agreed that the third boob (flower in the middle of the bust) would need to go, and that while the ruffles on the bust brought a nice detail to the top and made me look fuller, it was too much going on with the rest of the dress, especially since the bottom was so full.  After showing this picture to MOH E, she said the bottom scared her and looked like hair.  This one was officially off the list.

Last, I tried on another one with a fun full skirt, but less details overall. It had a corset back, and beautiful flowers on the skirt, with again, a pleated/ruched detailing on the bodice, and a sweetheart neckline.

Maggie Sottero "Alandra" / Personal Picture

Maggie Sottero "Alandra" / Personal Picture

Of all the dresses I tried on, the Maggie was the favorite.  It had some great detailing on the skirt, and the flowers fit well in with the venue, it being a Botanical Center, and the sweetheart neckline really looked great.  The only thing that didn't sell me about the dress was the corset back. I really don't like the way that they look, and while they do amazing things for the waistline, they just don't really appeal to me.  So, while we had another favorite, I still wasn't ready to commit.