So before going dress shopping for the first time, Cassidy said she would probably be spending the night at my place the night before. I figured, hey might as well invite the whole girls squad! So I sent out an invite and Kristen and Robyn decided to come too! Megan unfortunately was down in California visiting family and going to Disneyland so she wasn't able to join in. We missed her :-( But there will be more fun girly occasions!
We spent the evening scrolling though Pinterest, looking through a bridal magazine, and watching all of the chick flick wedding movies. I had just gotten Bride Wars, 27 Dresses, and Bridesmaids. We had fun eating pizza and ice cream and having a general good slumber party time. We made a dollar tree run to find white boards so that they could provide feedback on the dresses on the boards during the dress trying on!
It was lots of fun to share my wedding plans and to get some other peoples thoughts on everything. We didn't stay up too late so we were well rested for the coming day! But it was nice to have some bonding time with the girls :-) I hadn't had a girl’s night in a long time!
So the next day we woke up and had some bagels and such before heading off to Tigard to try on some dresses! The whole process worked really well. We walked in and were greeted by Lindsey, a nice young woman who seemed to really know how to do her job. She had me pick out one gown from each different silhouette to see what kind of dress I thought worked well for my body type and what I felt good in. I hadn't done too much searching for what I wanted before going in because I didn't want to fall in love with a style and then be really disappointed when I walked in and it looked bad on me. Walking over to the racks I was pretty overwhelmed because I wasn't sure what I wanted or what was very "me". I was relieved when Cassidy and Robyn came over to help me pick out the trial silhouette dresses. I wasn't too concerned with what these looked like because I was just going for trying on one for the shape. I think they may have come over because they were scared when I pulled this very strange toga looking Grecian dress. ;-)
Trying on the different silhouettes was really a good place to start and I would recommend it to anyone because just thinking about my body type I had sort of thought that I would need to kick out some of the silhouettes automatically because I thought they would look bad on me. But when I tried them on I was surprised that some that I thought were going to be really bad, weren't bad at all. I was glad that I wasn't set on a particular style, but the styles that I ended up going with were the two that I thought that I would have liked. But it was good to see them all on first before making that decision.
So after I knew okay these are the two styles that I liked (Ball gown and A-Line), we went back and pulled ones that were in those styles to get a better grip on what I liked in dresses and what I didn't. I figured out pretty quickly what I didn't like (Lace and Flowers). And what I did like (Tulle and Sparkles). From there it became more about what the dresses actually looked like. I probably tried on about 20 dresses at the first store. I was really good about finding tops and bottoms of the dresses that I liked but I couldn't find one that had both elements that I liked. I did though through the process figure out exactly what I wanted! So now it is just a matter of finding it! It was fun to have all the girls and my moms there to tell me what they thought of the dresses and what they thought of them. Towards the end my mom pulled a couple that I liked that hadn't been in that specific style which I really appreciated because they had the things I wanted in a different silhouette which just showed me that it's got to be out there. And helped me reconsider something that I thought I didn't like that I actually did. We didn’t find the dress at the first store but we left with the catalog numbers of the dresses that I did like and the information that I possible could take one of the skirt designs that I really liked and pair it with a different top by the same designer.
After the first store we decided to hit up some lunch in Bridgeport but it was pretty busy and I didn’t really want to be battling post-Christmas lunch crowds and the like for our party of 6 that we decided to carpool over to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. It was good and some of the girls had never been there so it was fun to take them someplace new.
After that we decided to try our luck at a smaller store in Tigard. This store was more of a browse on your own and then try on the ones you picked sort of place. They don’t do appointments so we had to wait a few minutes for one of the attendant ladies to be able to help us out. I was excited because this store had a dress that I had really liked online that I was hoping to try on at some point.
The lady at this shop was not as helpful as the one at the last place and not as nice either. I recognize that we were coming in at a time when they were already working with two others but she seemed really unhelpful and really not a people person. I could tell pretty quickly by this point once I put a dress on if I liked it or not. So when I put on a dress I would have it on for maybe two minutes and then be ready for the next. Because she was helping the other women it was hard t just get in and out. I ended up not liking the one that I had seen online in person. The elements of the dress didn’t look the same as they had appeared in the pictures. Which makes me glad I saw it in person! It had a lot of iridescent sequins in the dress that only sparkled in the sun and having it be Oregon in the winter I wasn’t ready to take the chance. I tried on another dress that had everything that I was looking for. But I didn’t like it because it had a lot of flower detailing and having it be a winter wedding that wasn’t really the style I was looking for. And when the lady asked what I didn’t like about the dress because it seemingly had what I was looking for and I told her I didn’t like it because all of the lace had a lot of flowers on it she gave me a like “are you freaking kidding me” look and then just seemed to have an attitude the rest of the time. I didn’t try on as many dresses there, maybe about 5? Both because it was clear they didn’t have what I was looking for and because that lady was kind of bringing down my mood.
It was fun to be able to have this whole trying on dresses experience with my 2 moms and most of my bridesmaids before they went back to the east coast or off to Denmark or up to Tacoma. I wanted them to be a part of the process even if they couldn’t be there for when I actually find the dress. I have a few months to find what I’m looking for so I’m not too worried. But I am excited to find it!
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