Wedding Dress Dread

Wedding dress shopping is kind of a big deal. (Hello, there are even television shows dedicated to the process!) And although I usually L.O.V.E. most shopping trips, the prospect of finding “the dress” totally turned me off. Besides watching other brides find their dresses on tv, there really wasn’t anything appealing about it. As various people found out I was getting married, many of them excitedly asked, “have you found your dress yet?!” I became accustomed to my go-to response of, “no, net yet. And I’m really not looking forward to it.” (This was typically returned with the you-have-three-heads look.) I guess dress shopping is a part of the wedding process that many brides look back fondly upon, but I thought it was going to be a disaster.

I’m a pretty averaged-sized girl who takes care of herself with exercise and healthy eating most of the time, and like most women, I wanted to look exceptionally beautiful on my wedding day. Through reading many magazines and articles, I had learned that wedding dress sizing did not correspond with street-clothes sizing. In fact, wedding dresses could be a whole one to two sizes smaller. Since it would be impractical for most dress shops to have a sample in every size, they only kept certain sizes on hand. To me this translated as a warning cry. “Prepare yourself! Nothing will fit!” I, like any bride, wanted to enjoy the shopping experience, but I had fun-house style images in my head. Although the label size never bother me, I pictured literally nothing fitting. Even though I really enjoyed them, I don’t think all of the dress shows really helped to ease my fears either. The episodes all captured so much drama!  (Tears, broken budgets, and family squabbles, oh my!) And even though more recently they have started featuring brides of all sizes, most part the shows I watched featured itty-bitty girls. (And model-thin, I was not.)

A not-so-happy Minnie pin via Okey Dokey Goodies

To make a difficult process worse, I thought back on my special-event dress experiences of the past. In high school searching for banquet and prom dresses was a total chore. I used to try on dress after dress after dress... even thinking back on it is exhausting really. (I’m sure Momma Hawk still has nightmares.) I knew indecision would be my worst enemy. (Prom was not NEARLY as important as a wedding! I figured that my indecision would grow exponentially along with the importance of the event. Dress.Shopping.HELL.)

These fears stayed with me for months until Momma and Sister Hawk came into town during the summer for a whirlwind week of all things wedding. I knew their arrival would be D-Day. (I had literally scheduled dress appointments their first full day in case it took all week for me to come to a decision!) I was fearful up until the moment I saw myself in the mirror in my first dress. I looked kinda good and the dress was kinda beautiful. I’m sure the ooh-ing and ahh-ing of my supportive mom and sister definitely helped my confidence as well, but what really changed my attitude was my bridal consultant. She, very sweetly, reminded me that: 1. I had a great figure and 2. It would be more difficult to find a dress I didn’t like than finding one I did like because they would all be beautiful on me. Now if I had verbalized my fears more clearly to my family, I know they would have said something similar, but having an outsider say it really snapped me out of my funk. From there on out I was really able to enjoy the process and wouldn’t you know it that I found my dress on the first day?

Did you share in my wedding dress shopping mentality or were you excited from the start? Did it end up being easier/harder than you had imagined?