Dress Shopping: Round One

April 5, 2010 Dress Shopping: Round One

So… I did a little preliminary dress shopping this past Friday. The reason: Monique Lhullier trunk show. Can you blame me for not being able to resist the sweet, sweet pull of ML herself? No, no you cannot. Her entire Fall 2010 Collection awaited my eager hands. I rounded up my girls (not my girls, girls– those are unofficial & not yet named) and we headed to the best place in the world to look upon loveliness. The day: beautiful. Endless blue skies, no clouds to speak of,  80 degrees of amazingness. I entered into the hallowed halls of the Bride Room with a nervous, eager anticipation, and then the choirs of angels began: Monique, Monique, Monique.

I’ll be honest here: I hate shopping. Generally, the experience is fairly negative, in that I feel pretty awful about myself, my body, and my choice of clothing. What’s so cool about trying on gowns is that you are placed into these lovely gowns and then you are clipped up and made to look perfect within them. Cool, right? Yeah, i know. And there’s just *something* about couture. No mass market cheaply constructed crap materials here. It’s all lace and loveliness.

So, I tried on a variety of awesome. There’s a no-pic rule (bummer, but makes sense) in the store, so I have to rely on my friend, the interwebs, to provide images. The funny thing is that I learned a few things that I thought I’d share:

1. The way the dress looks online/in pictures does not do it justice IRL: I had several gowns I thought would look one way and then when I saw them they were something else entirely.

2. ML makes her bust cup size for a B cup. I totally blasted out of that one. Luckily, she does make a custom bust-fit alteration when you order your gown

3.  Your memory is crap. Write down the dresses you tried on, because now that I’m trying to remember some of them ( I remember the way they looked on me, not the way they look online) I am not sure if they’re exactly what I thought I remembered and my memory is a hazy thing clouded by the sweet euphoria of MONIQUE LHULLIER WEDDING DRESSES.

I’m pretty sure that the first dress I tried on was Agnes. Agnes is a “Ivory re-embroidered lace sheath gown with Juliet neckline, open back and trumpet skirt” I love the sleeves. I love Agnes:

I really felt that the sheath lace dress was going to be “it” for me: i love lace, love the look of it– so I tried on something a lot like Ingrid, pictured below (sans the little hat)

Either way, it was not really for me. It was a gorgeous gown, but I felt like I looked a million years old. I may be 30, but I’m not a million.

The second dress I tried on was “the dress” You know. You see it on Say Yes to The Dress all the time, the zen aha “THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING, WONDERFUL, FANTASTICAL dress ever. I felt that way, I really did. FFI. Stop Reading. I didn’t buy this dress (because I’ll have to sell everything I own) but I don’t want you to know what it is or what it looks like. So, go away.

To further make him go, how about a quick kitten interlude:

Gosh, that was cute. I sometimes think about how darling kittens -as -wedding-centerpieces would look. Yes, they’d eventually move around, but wow…adorable.

Anyway, so the dress. THE DRESS. Let me just say that I have never felt more beautiful, wonderful, fantastic, amazing, happy and elated in an outfit in MY ENTIRE LIFE. and i’ve lived awhile now, 10,950+ days. It was a moment close to what i’d imagine entering into the pearly gates of heaven is like, or maybe the joy I’ll feel on the day I marry FFI.

FFI– you best have gone away now.

The dress, <– you’ll have to click, not going to put the picture on the blog. Duh. Her name is “Edith” If I ever win the lottery, me and edith are going to have a lovely life. She’s going to have a lovely sash in sage green along with some awesometastic bling added. I really, really, really love the lace detail, and as a result– I have made the decision that this pattern, the lace pattern of Edith– is the major cornerstone of the overall design pattern for my wedding. It’s that simple folks. You meet, fall in love, and then Edith is part of your life forever. If I can’t have her, then I’m going to have her memory kept close to my heart.

As my ultimate accessory, I tried on a veil by Tony Federici that is to die for– Chantilly Lace (swoon), gauzy and romantic:
Now, how does one come off this bridal gown high and come back down to earth. I have no idea, and I’m not sure I really want to!

Thanks to style me pretty look book for monique-images

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Tags: dress shopping, gowns, love, monique lhuiller

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