1 Year Out - Post 1: The Dress

First, let me get this out of the way...

Oh My Goodness, I Have My Wedding Dress!!!!!

Phew.  Ok.  

I didn't go into the weekend expecting to find the dress.  Mom wanted to at least kick off dress shopping with me in Roanoke since she and I wouldn't be able to get together often and early enough to do most of the shopping together.

In between wedding related appointments and family meet ups, the girls ventured out for some dress fun.  On Friday, Janice (Doug's step-mother), Mom, and I headed to Patina Formals to kick off wedding dress shopping.  Our goal was to start getting ideas of what worked and what didn't work so that I could take those qualities with me back to Charlotte to continue the hunt.  Patina turned out to be quite interesting.  First, the store is not where Google says it is.  So we had a nice little car trip down Electric Ave to find Patina.  Once there, we headed right over to the wedding section.  As one of the girls there started to talk to us about dresses and starting pulling stuff, I started to freak out a little bit.  Holy cow, I'm getting married!  After a few deep breaths, I started diving into the size 14 sample dresses.  Being more of a size 6, there was a LOT of extra fabric.  The girls there were very nice and were very talented at pulling and clipping tons of extra dress fabric to make it look fitted. 

There isn't too much else to share about Patina except for the now infamous booty dress:

 

Had we looked at the selection of regular dresses in Patina, we would have realized that this was status quo and it was not up our alley.

We were hoping Aunt Sherry was able to join us on this little adventure, but she was still at work.  The three of us decided that we had so much fun that we wanted to at least get out to one other place on Saturday.  Saturday afternoon, Mom, Janice, and I headed to Amrhein's and had Aunt Sherry meet us there.  I had gone past Amrhein's a dozen times on my trips to Roanoke and never thought it would be a place I would stop in.  It had a pink exterior with a light green sign.  It didn't really scream "Crystal".  We figured that Amrhein's would have a better selection than Patina and we could get some better ideas there.

While trying on dresses, a woman came in looking at the non-wedding dresses.  The ladies struck up a conversation with her about the dresses she was trying on while I was getting into the wedding samples.  It turns out, she is Miss Roanoke USA and she'll be up for Miss Virginia USA in two weeks.  She was looking for a gown for the pageant.  Everyone, say hello to Miss Roanoke USA (and wish her luck).  She was a very sweet girl and she landed a hell of a deal on her dress.

Miss Roanoke USA

Little did I know at the time, but I was getting into my wedding dress behind that door at the moment this photo was taken!  

I fell in love with two dresses at this shop.  When I had on the first one that I loved, I started to freak out because I wasn't expecting to find anything even close to being THE dress that day.  Yet, there I was standing in one I was seriously considering.  I freaked out a little more when I had on the second dress that I loved because now I knew that I was going to be buying a wedding dress that day.  It was simply a matter of which one.

At first I thought it was going to be a hard decision, until I was able to walk myself through why I liked each dress.  One I loved as an elegant gown.  I could wear this style of gown to any formal event.  The other I loved as a wedding gown.  It was that simple.

The Runner-Up

Janice, me, Mom, Aunt Sherry and the runner-up gown

Who knew that finding my wedding dress would be the easiest thing next to deciding on the officiant in wedding planning?

So, ladies and gentlemen, I have my wedding dress and headpiece.  I know how I'll be wearing my hair.  I know that I don't need more than a couple of accessories.  I have my wedding dress.

This was one of the biggest things this weekend that made all of this very real for me.