It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about my wedding – in fact, it’s been a while since my wedding – nearly 5 months, to be exact. Some time has passed, I’ve come down from the high of it all (a bit…) and now I’m ready to share with you, my lovely readers, some photos from my actual wedding.
Today – let’s get right to it and talk about the dress.
I fully admit that I had a major case of Dress Regret, and I actually ended up getting a second gown. I purchased my original dress while shopping with my mom, one of my sisters, one of my cousins, and my mom’s best friend. They loved the dress. I felt beautiful in the dress. It was gorgeous. But it wasn’t me, and when my actual dress came in 4 months later I couldn’t get excited about beginning alterations. Tack on the fact that it wasn’t fitting properly (they had mismeasured me, apparently) and I knew that I had to start looking again.
Here’s a stock photo of my original dress, the Allure 8850.
If you want to read about that entire experience, I wrote a post about it for Rhode Island Monthly’s Engaged Magazine “Aisle Say” wedding blog – you can check it out here.
So now on to my second dress – the gown I actually wore on the big day.
When I first realized that I didn’t love my original gown I went shopping on my own a couple times so that I wouldn’t be influenced by anyone else’s opinions. After I’d narrowed my dress selections down I took a deep breath and called my mom to let her know what was going on, and she agreed to come look at dresses with me. However, she had 1 stipulation – I was going to try on every single dress that she thought might look halfway decent, so that “this didn’t happen again.” It sounds fun – yay, wedding gowns! But actually, it was kind of torture. I tried on probably 25 gowns that afternoon.
As it turns out, my mom was right (isn’t that always the case?). One of the dresses she picked out for me was everything I said I didn’t want. It was satin, first of all – and I had continuously insisted that I wanted a mostly lace dress with “no shiny fabrics” – partially because I’m not much of a blingy girl, and partially because I was concerned that satin would wrinkle during the limo ride and during the church service (in Catholic ceremonies the couple has to kneel for a large portion of the service). It had a corset back which is really not my style, and it was “alabaster,” which compared to all of the diamond white samples in the store looked almost brown! I knew I wasn’t going to be wearing a bright white gown (my original gown was ivory) but brown was definitely not in the cards.
But I put it on and oh… my… goodness.
Turns out, the “shiny” fabric was gorgeous, and the lace appliques gave it just enough of that traditional flare I was looking for. It had straps and the back wasn’t cut as low as my original gown, which was fantastic. It had a gloriously long train – longer than my original gown – which I was obsessed with. The color “alabaster” was actually stunning (and just a slightly darker shade of ivory) and gave the gown that slightly vintage/traditional feel I was looking for, and is the color I ended up purchasing the gown in. The seamstress assured me that swapping out the corset back for a zipper with buttons would be pretty easy (although I did need to purchase the dress 4 sizes larger to ensure they had enough fabric to work with).
Most importantly, it just felt right. I didn’t feel like a little girl playing dress up. I felt like the prettiest version of myself.
Check out some of my favorite photos from the wedding day (that are dress-centric, at least).
The above photo wasn’t a staged shot – there were literally four people with their hands on me adjusting and arranging things before I walked out of the suite. (My mom, in the blue dress, my two sisters who were co-maids of honor, and my aunt who was also my hair stylist.)
The result of all their hard work!
My dad, handing me off at the end of the aisle.
My absolute favorite dress shot.
And the entire bridal party… cascading train included.