By now, you may have seen my wedding dress either her on my site or some form of social media or maybe even my recent Good Day New York segment where our wedding day pictures were up on the screen. But what you don’t know is my journey to saying yes to the dress. It was a long one. Actually a painful one. I found myself inside bridal boutiques for months watching girls cry when they had their “say yes to the dress moment.” For me, I was in tears because the lace wasn’t a consistent pattern or the dress hit me at the wrong spot or made me look 10 lbs. bigger. I officially hated wedding dresses by month 4 of dress shopping.
Dress shopping started out on a high note. I was engaged November 9, 2013. Right after Thanksgiving, this very time last year, my mom and I took our first trip to try on dresses. Our first stop: Kleinfeld’s. At the suggestion of friends, they said this was a good place to start. And it was. I fell in love with an Jim Hjelm dress at a great price right off the bat. I had an appointment set up at Gabriella’s, a boutique bridal store formerly located in the West Village, right afterwards. Off to the next stop we went. I figured I would check it out, just to be sure. Sure enough, I fell in love with another dress there. A non-traditional one-shoulder dress by a new designer Anna Maier. I loved it. I went home so excited because I knew this was my dress. I decided to take the week to think about it and would go back the following weekend when they were having a trunk show and I could get a good discount. That week I had to travel for work. I found myself on the airplane and in my hotel room at night analyzing the photos. After I returned home, I doubted this was the right dress. So I continued my search.
Here I am trying on a few dresses (in total, I must have tried on 50, these are just the highlights.)
Ines di Santo – Bergdorf Goodman
Anna Maier – Gabriella’s
Suzanne Neville – Wedding Atelier
Ines di Santo – Bergdorf Goodman
Alvina Valenta – Wedding Atelier
Vera Wang – at Vera Wang
I finally decided on…drumroll please…the Alvina Valenta. I felt relieved. I finally had my dress. But something inside me still wasn’t happy a few days later. I didn’t want to tell my mother or even my friends that after all that I still wasn’t happy. So I tried to remind myself to stop second guessing and to stop looking at the photos. I deleted almost all of them from my phone. Something still felt wrong. So two days later, I cancelled my order. I finally confessed to my mom. My now sister-in-law even asked if she thought this was my way of saying I didn’t want to get married. No, this was about fashion. I officially hated wedding dresses. I thought I would love wedding dress shopping but it was the complete opposite. Two more months of wedding dress shopping went by. A work trip to LA? Perfect time to hit up stores on the west coast and nothing. A weekend to visit my family? Maybe a quaint Connecticut bridal store would have something the city didn’t? I couldn’t find something I loved. I was officially going to be the girl who got married in white jeans and a white button down.
I always imagined I would wear a Monique Lhuiller dress. I even have a tear sheet of one of her dresses from 2009. Yes, I am that girl. My first trip to try on dresses there was discouraging. I hated her fit. I wanted a slim fitting lace gown and Monique’s were not meant for curvy girls like myself. They hugged my curves in all the wrong places and were not flattering. But late February I decided to give it one more shot. This time a new dress came in called Perfection and perfection (well, almost perfection) it was.
This was me trying on the dress.
I loved the triple layers of lace. I loved the fit, the way it showed off my waist, the crisp bridal shade of white. I loved everything about it, except it didn’t have sleeves. I wanted sleeves. I have always wanted sleeves. Grace Kelly wore sleeves. Kate Middleton. My mother. Every bridal icon I know of. I love the look of illusion lace draped across a bride’s shoulders. I think it’s elegant, timeless. I didn’t want to look “sexy” on my wedding day. But classic. So I came up with an idea to design my dress according to the image I had in my head for months now. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? So I went for it.
I worked with Essin, a seamstress at Monique Lhuillier to customize my dress (there she is hiding behind me.) Essin has worked with Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump when she was at Vera Wang so I knew I could trust her and just relax.
This is my dress when it first came in. Huge, didn’t fit me at all. Relax? Ha! I was stressed. But Essin assured me we would get it right.
A month later I went back in for my next fitting. Finally, it was my perfection. The fit was just right. I loved my dress on our wedding day. I still love it. I have no regrets that I listened to my heart and continued to search for the one. It wasn’t easy for me. But I knew I had to have it just right for our wedding day. I am happy to say it was.
Top Tips for Wedding Gown Shopping:
-Don’t make a decision until you reach your ordering deadline.
-Try on a ton of dresses.
-Go to the bridal salon alone or take your mom or one friend (too many opinions become confusing.)
NYC Wedding Gown Stores to Try:
-Gabriella’s Bridal Salon
-Bridal Reflections
-Wedding Atelier
-Mark Ingram
-Monique Lhuillier
Wedding Gown Stores to Skip
-Bergdorf Goodman (about 10-20% more expensive than other stores with the same dresses)
-Saks (old samples, not a great selection)