If there’s something little girls around the world dream of just as much as finding the right guy to marry, it’s finding the right dress to get married in. Yes, it might be shallow and superficial, but who can honestly say they never thought about their wedding dress well before even finding a man? I don’t know why we care about it so much, but we just do.
I remember that about 10 years ago, I had decided that I was going to wear a mermaid silhouette gown on my wedding day. However, I didn’t foresee everybody and their mother would start wearing that same style, so after that trend exploded it didn’t sound so appealing to me anymore. Then for a while I considered wearing a big princessy puffy gown, but also ended up discarding that idea because it started sounding too cliché to go for the whole “princess bride” look.
When the moment finally came to actually start looking for my wedding dress, I just had one thing in mind, I wanted it to be timeless not trendy…something my grandkids could look at in 50 years and go “Wow, grandma’s dress was beautiful” and not “what the hell was she thinking with that dress?!”. Ok, so maybe I had two things in mind, because I also knew that I didn’t want a strapless dress, I wanted my dress to have some sort of sleeve, whether it was short, 3/4 or long. There are tons of beautiful strapless dresses out there, and I have loved many I’ve seen, but the reign of the strapless dress has just been too long, and I’ve really gotten bored with it by now.
So off I went looking for my perfect dress, with those two ideas in mind, having very little time and therefore very few options. Who knew it could take up to 9 months to get a wedding dress in after you order it? I didn’t have that kind of time, when we decided to have a wedding, we decided to have it right away… which left me with mostly off-the-rack options at most bridal shops. And do you know what off-the-rack means in wedding dresses terms? It means you have extremely limited choices, and most them are not very good looking at all. Add to that the fact that 90% of wedding dresses are strapless, and I began to seriously question whether I would ever find a dress I was 100% happy with….enter Schaffer’s Bridal and their awesome selection.
Schaffer’s is a bridal shop in North Scottsdale (they also have a couple locations in Iowa) that offers the ultimate bridal shopping experience. From the moment you walk in, you feel like you’ve stepped right into every girl’s dream of shopping for a wedding dress. The store is be-a-utiful, elegantly decorated, with their huge selection perfectly arranged by price point, and every fitting room large enough to be truly comfortable, spaced from each other so that you have enough privacy, and with plenty of seating for your whole bridal party if they’ve come to help you with the selection process. Of course you’re greeted with a glass of champagne or mimosa, and immediately assigned the girl that would help you exclusively on your search. And when I say their selection of wedding dresses is huge, believe me, it is huuuuge. Their price point starts at around $800 and goes up until the many thousands if you decide to look through their haute couture selection.
Of course I couldn’t miss the opportunity to admire in person some lovely Marchesa and Vera Wang, and even tried on a Reem Acraa dress that I had loved for years…but it’s true what they say, when you’ve found THE dress, you just know. The Reem Acraa was beautiful, but when I put on the dress I ended up picking, I knew I had found the one. And they just so happened to have it on my size, at the right price point for me, all ready to go! It didn’t even need any alterations other that the length…talk about meant to be. Granted, I initially couldn’t believe I was going to end up with that cliché princessy look after all, and even considered having them take some of the crinoline out, but I was afraid it would end up looking not as great, because it looked pretty darn good on me as it was, if I do say so myself.So yes, I ended up going with the big puffy ball gown, because at the end of the day, no matter what preconceived notions you may have had, you just want to feel comfortable and beautiful on your wedding dress…and this dress made me feel just that.
Now, once the dress had been chosen, the fantasy of finding the perfect dress was replaced by the fantasy of seeing my groom’s reaction when he’d finally see me in it. Every bride hopes to get that “you are the most beautiful bride I have ever laid eyes on” reaction from their groom… and I think I accomplished that. My groom is a man of few words and mild reactions, but there was just this look on his eyes, this lovey-dovey, “you are so beautiful” look, a look that I’m very familiar with, a look that I love and live for.
Luckily, my amazing photographer was on hand to capture that fleeting moment, the big dress reveal.
Photos by Steven Toupin
Bridal dress by White One – Tuxedo by Lauren Ralph Lauren Collection
