Found:

December 16, 2009

Found:

One wedding dress.

Colour: Ivory

Fabric: Satin

Feeling: Perfection

Our dress hunt began in earnest on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. when I arrived at Ritché for my appointment. My consultant, Sonya, chatted with me and got a good idea of what I was looking for (buzz words “elegant,” “classic,” “not too much embellishment,”) and headed off to the stock room (with my list of dress styles in hand) to pull some gowns.

She came back with a few gowns from my list, as well as a few of her own picks.

I was very happy that Ritche was cool with us taking photos. We only took photos of those dresses that were somewhat interesting.

I present you with a random smattering of the rejects:

Maggie Sottero – Janelle

Pronovias – Genova

Enzoani – Not sure of style name

Turns out nothing even came close to comparing to the first dress I tried on (not pictured above…wait for it).

We left Ritche, went downtown, grabbed some lunch at Cafe Nervosa (my close friend and BM Emily joined us):

I ate a whole thin-crust pizza. Who knew that trying on dresses caused so much hunger?!

We thought that it would be great to fit in one more store in the afternoon so that Em could see me in some dresses, and also so that I could try some totally “out there” things on to make sure that the dress I LOVED was the right one. Didn’t want to leave any stones unturned. (I should note that after we left Ritche I spent about 98% of my time talking about how much I loved dress number 1. How stunning it was. How it hugged me in all the right places. How I LOVED the heavy fabric. How The Guy would like the cleavage. Etc. Etc. You could say I was a little annoying).

So we headed down to Spadina and found a shop where we didn’t need an appointment. Let me tell you, it was nothing fancy! The fitting rooms were small and basically created out of bright pink shower curtains. But the store seemed to carry a lot of nice lines. When we walked in we saw “my” dress on a mannequin. We asked the sales associate to take it off the mannequin so that I could try it on (wanted Emily to see it).

I tried on a HUGE variety of dresses at store #2. A STUNNING Pronovias mermaid dress (remember how I said I thought mermaids would looks horrible on me? Yeah, I was wrong). It didn’t feel “wedding-ish” though. I think I would wear it on the red carpet at the Oscars though! I tried on ball gowns and froofy gowns that looked like they were made of meringue. I even tried on a Paloma Blanca number that looked like it was better fit for someone attending a ball at the White House (I’m sure it would be very lovely on a lot of people — on me it was matronly).

And then, after rejecting all of the above, they brought out “my” dress. I put it on and everyone — including the sales associate — couldn’t stop talking about how perfectly it suited me. So at that point I was 99% decided that it was the one.

I was standing on the pedestal in front of one of those giant mirrors and then, all of the sudden, the radio that had been playing top 40 music, started playing Ave Maria. My mum and I instantly burst into tears and couldn’t even talk. It was my grandma’s favourite song. Just as we pulled ourselves together, an old version of Silent Night, my grandma’s favourite Christmas song, came on. We knew immediately that it was the dress. As my mum said, “Grandma walked into the room.”

We went back to Ritche on Monday and bought “the one.”

I present to you….my wedding gown!:

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