Dress shopping, Part 1

What is it about finding the right dress? Somehow it seems like it should be so easy. All the magazines and consultants and people telling you that there is a dress for every body shape, that they can find your perfect dress. How does that mesh with the changes that happen between the time you find the dress and the time you wear it, especially if you're stressed planning a wedding and living your life?

Trying on dresses for the first time wasn't fun. It wasn't terrible, but it would definitely be a stretch to say it was fun. Good things came out of it, though; progress was made. Leaning now toward something long instead of the tea-length I was first considering, after one of my co-shoppers pointed out that a short dress plus sitting down for our Quaker ceremony might mean that some of our guests would get an eye-full! Thinking about ivory. Still trying to strike a balance between simple and lacy/romantic/delicate.

I'm so grateful for my co-worker, who found all my inspiration dresses, and who looked at the pictures of me trying on dresses without once saying "unflattering" or commenting on the faces I was making. :)

And then this morning I almost bought a dress spontaneously - a no-return, on sale from an outlet store kind of a dress. And I felt like that might be both a relief (to have a dress, any dress, and know that it would keep me from wearing a white t-shirt to my wedding) and that it would cut short the joy and satisfaction that come from searching, taking advice, trying on too many dresses, and eventually finding the right one. Not the designer label one, not the cheapest one, just the one that's right for me. So it's probably for the best that by the time I was really ready to buy it all they had left of "my" dress was size 2. There's plenty of time, and about a zillion more dresses waiting out there.