Dress!

Before I go posting pictures and posts all willy nilly about accessories, I want to share a little about my dress.
I had wanted a non-white wedding dress when I first started thinking about getting my wedding gown. I wasn't sure whether I wanted yellow or purple but I found some Vera Wangs that got me in the mindset.

By the time I had stressed out so much about the price of the Vera Wangs I realized it would never happen. I did find a company online that specializes in replicas that are about 10% of the price of an original so I emailed them. They seemed legit and I talked to some other online brides who had used them, but the handpainting on the green "Didi" Vera Wang just wouldn't be the same on the replica.

I had dreams about the wedding but never saw my dress. Some of my Offbeat Bride Tribe-sisters told me they had dreams about theirs and they paid attention to the details and used them in their actual wedding. One night I had a dream I was climbing the stairs in my venue into the reception area and I had a lucid moment during the dream where I looked down at my dress and saw the top in great detail. I also saw that it was a shade of white so I disregarded it.

My mother said we would go shopping and just see what was out there so I agreed. I went once by myself to try one in every silhouette without a biased opinion (a positive bias, but biased nonetheless). I went once with my fiance to show him one I ended up hating in the end. Then I went to the Nebraska Bridal Outlet. People--- seriously. I'd heard from one bride who is smaller than me and one who is larger and they both got a dress there. Now this I had to see. It is a 45 minute drive into the bleak rural area West of Omaha to a place called Wahoo.

I walked in with my father, mother and fiance. They let my mom bring her dog in her pup stroller! As always, the HiLLjO-sized section looked bleak. I grabbed one out of that then went to a rack of my-size samples they had just gotten from a show. We tried on a bunch, some were pretty and some we didn't bother zipping. A couple of girls had found their dresses already since I had come into the store and they were shrieking their delight for the whole salon to hear. I looked at my mom with tears in my eyes "Mommy, I want my wedding dress." She hugged me, said "We'll get it. Let's go get that broad out there," and out we went again. I told her I was looking for a lightweight trumpet style and she took me over to the sample rack. She described one I had in the room and had no luck with. I sighed and threw my head back in exasperation.
Would I have to make it?

When I looked back down I saw a gown sticking out of the regular rack within the average sizes that someone failed to shuffle back into place. You know when you're trying wedding dresses on and they tell you it looks different on the rack than on you? Well I hoped it wasn't true with this little number because I loved it from inside its plastic bag before trying it on. We took it to the room and my mother and I wanted to lace it up in order to kill time and to see what it really looked like. As I was gettin sinched I started to look at the top.

All be damned if two things didn't happen:
1)I understand what deja vu is and 2)I cried. Deja vu is where you dream about something happening and then it happens when you're awake. The feeling is the remembering. This dress I remembered... from my dream! I told my mom "I know this is the one. I'm crying. I only want to see it all at once." I stopped looking even though I already knew and she finished the tying so we walked out to show our guys. I couldn't stop smiling the dress even felt good on. My dad says "She likes this one, look at her face," to Shawn. I got in front of the mirror and the magic happened.

We all stopped. We knew.

I'm not posting up what I look like in the dress but this is the manufacturer's picture of it.

Note that it will be much different looking when I am done with it. So this is my wedding dress story. I wish everyone would share theirs.