Wedding Wednesday: My Dress

Today is a sultry, rainy Wednesday. I just adore the sound of the rain, so I am sitting here, with the windows open, just listening to the storm and being thankful that I don't have to water the plants today.

I was thinking the story of my dress would pair nicely with the post about my veil last Wednesday. 

I always imagined myself in a very simple, straight line white dress, with lace or beading.  

 

I adore this simple, beaded dress from Rivini. 

 

I tried on every dress that matched this description that I could get my hands on--probably close to 50. I liked the Rivini above, but my mom wasn't crazy about it.  She begged me to try on a big, Cinderella style dress because she always envisioned me in one. I tried on a few poofballs, just to appease her.  I felt like a child dressing up as a Disney princess, which wasn't exactly the feeling I wanted on my wedding day.
And, then I tried on this one:

I felt so beautiful in this Romona Keveza. I loved how it was fitted through the bodice and then flared out below the hips. I literally wore it around the store for close to an hour--I couldn't bear to take it off. The only small alteration I wanted was to make the neckline a sweetheart, but I was sold. 

However, I couldn't bring myself to justify the large price tag for a dress. I kept searching for a dress, trying new ones on in this style. I tried on quite a few dresses with the pick ups, but none looked like this or looked the same.  

A few months went by, and I almost gave up. But, two months later, I got a call from a store saying that they had gotten a returned dress in the Romona Keveza style, and wanted to know if I was interested as it was close to my size. The only catch: it was ivory and had been made with the bust of another Romona style and had a sweetheart neckline.  They would sell it to me at a discounted price because of the "alteration" and they wanted to mail me a picture to see if I would like it.

 

I bought the dress immediately over the phone. I was thrilled and just knew that dress was made for me.

I had a dress label (made by Monde Designs) made and put inside of my dress. The label had the same gold decor as the one pictured below, but it had my name, C's name, and our wedding day stitched in royal blue as my something blue (and no leaf).

 

 I could not imagine a single piece of clothing making me any happier on my wedding day.