When I first started my dress search, I had these beauties in mind.
It was immediately obvious that I loved floaty folds of tulle or silk. What I quickly realized was that yards and yards of tulle and designs like these....well, they're expensive. We're talking 5-10k. Or more! My original budget for a dress was around $1200. I wasn't yet aware of the realm of pre-owned dresses, so I did what I could with my budget. The only other pre-requisite I had for my dress was that it have a sweetheart neckline.
I started my search because of a dress I found at Davids Bridal that was similar to the Vera Wang folds dress. It belonged to the Vera Wang - White collection, but as soon as I stepped into it I could tell it wasn't matching the vision I had of the original Vera.
My mother immediately compared the folds to "folds of toilet paper" or worse "like lady parts." and after she made that comparison, I couldn't see it any other way. The v-neck option was pretty, but my bridesmaids finally admitted that it made me look...well.... older than I am. I gave up on the folds and decided to focus on the floaty sweetheart options.
The next dresses I tried on were at a bridal salon called Classy Concepts in Mansfield. This is where I first started to consider lace. I peeked over at the bride one stand over and was experiencing some serious dress envy of her full lace dress. I tried on several dresses, but only one really caught my interest. I tried it on, and it completely fulfilled my 'floaty' requirement. It also had this gorgeous flower embroidery, and a pretty barely pink empire waist. It didn't have a tag, and I plagued the Hive with this mystery dress picture until the designer was found. This is Casablanca 1951, and its previous owner had called off her wedding :(
I really did love this dress. The gemstone in the middle made me feel like a hippie version of princess Jasmine, and I'm experiencing a little dress regret as I post this. The only problem was that it was very slightly too short for me, something probably only I noticed. My mom offered to pay the 'hold price' of $50, and off we went with promises to bring my mother-in-law back to take a look at it before I pulled the trigger. However, the longer I was away from the dress, the less sure I was...so I kept looking.
I tried on some dresses at GroupUSA in Grapevine, but they were inattentive and unhelpful, and MOH Ashley had to help me in and out of the dresses. We didn't find anything that stood out, either, a lot of overpriced, old fashioned designs.
Overall, I probably tried on close to 30 dresses, if I had to guess, but in the end it came down to two. Tune in for part 2 ;)
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