A POST FOR MY FELLOW BRIDES LOOKING FOR ‘THE ONE’

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Oh hey, I’m guessing if you’ve checked in to read this then you’re a fellow bride too, huh? Cool, well serious congrats hun, you and boo made it. You’re getting married and that’s a pretty big deal. You go sister.

So let’s just talk about the title of this post real quick.

When I say ‘my fellow brides looking for ‘the one”, I’m clearly not referring to single ladies who have suddenly decided that now’s the time to be a bride and they need to lasso themselves a male. Like this isn’t a post for lonely souls who sit around the house in a wedding dress, searching Tinder for husband material.

That would just be weird.

No, I’m not talking about finding that one. I’m talking about finding the dress. Obvs. The biggest outfit decision you’ll probs ever make.

It’s a bit like when you had to choose a dress for prom, only 25 times more important. (Hands up, who else took prom a little too seriously? I know I’m not the only one right. Although I probs am the only one who had their limo taken away by the police. Uh huh. Sounds rock ‘n’ roll but it wasn’t. It was just lame.)

So this week was a pretty big one in my wedding prep because I only went and said yes to the dress. What a flippin’ monumental moment. And do you know what? I didn’t realise how stressed I was feeling about the whole outfit thing until I found ‘the one’, because the sense of relief was enormous. Humongous.

Big box ticked.

So can I just offer out some of my words of wisdom about wedding dress hunting? If I may? From one bride to another and all that:

 

TRY ON EVERYTHING & RULE OUT NOTHING. This was the best piece of advice that people gave me when I asked for wedding dress hunting pointers over on Insta (thanks boo’s). I tried to go into this whole process with a super open mind.

For example, I knew I wasn’t looking for a princess dress that would make me look like a cake topper, but hell I tried ’em on anyway. One, because OMG SO MUCH FUN and two because you never know. I might have stepped into that big ol’ ruffled outfit and gone ‘y’know what, I feel fabulous AF. This is it’.

Needless to say I didn’t feel like that. Spoiler alert- no I will not be a Disney princess on my wedding day. I’d like to be able to move, thank you very much.

But it really helped me define exactly what I wasn’t looking for, which lead me one step closer to ‘the one’.

 

ONLY VISIT SHOPS WITHIN YOUR BUDGET. Do you remember way back in this post where I was like ‘oh I’m gonna save all the moneys and get a high street wedding dress because I’m cool like that‘. Well I did scour the internet for high street wedding dresses. I did try some on. I even had an appointment this week for a high street store to try on their wedding collection. But, I also went to bridal shops. Bridal shops that stocked dresses waaaay over my budget.

And guess what? I have not purchased a high street wedding dress.

If you have a strict budget in mind, I would recommend finding out what price ranges the bridal shop stocks before visiting. Because if you try something on that you fall in love with, it’s very difficult to say ‘no’ even when the price tag is waaaaaay more than you were hoping to spend.

 

IT’S GOTTA BE ‘THE ONE’ FROM EVERY ANGLE. I tried on a few dresses that I adored from the back. But from the front? Pretty average. I spent the whole time in these dresses with my neck craned backwards looking at my butt angle in the mirror.

I could have easily settled for a dress like this. But now I’ve found ‘the one’, I’m so very, very relieved that I didn’t.

‘The one’ has to tick all the boxes, and then some. Don’t settle for anything less.

Make sure you like it from every angle because BOY there’s gonna be a lotta cameras on your case that day.

 

DON’T RULE OUT SHOPS JUST FROM THEIR WEBSITE. I nearly didn’t book an appointment with the shop I eventually purchased my dress from. Mainly because the collections on their website weren’t entirely what I was looking for. In fact, I’d told my Mum that we probably wouldn’t find anything at all and that it would just be nice to go for the experience. Y’know, girls day out.

So I was pretty delighted when I arrived at the shop to find that their website didn’t reflect their stock at all. Or even really the style of dresses they had on offer. They had tons of dresses that I was eager to try on.

And this is a really important point; I found that a lot of bridal shop websites were a bit naff. They use stock photos sent from suppliers and they seemed outdated. I’m not knocking them, but I just want to point out that you shouldn’t take bridal shop websites at face value.

Go and see for yourself. And always go on recommendations for shops. (Big up to my pals who gave me shop recommendations). 

 

STOP OBSESSING OVER PINTEREST BRIDAL SHOTS. Great as a starting point, but don’t get too caught up in Pinterest. I found many of the dresses that I was crushing over were from America or Australia. The photos were years old. I was never going to find that dress.

Use it as a starting point yes. But don’t get too het up over these photos – be realistic.

 

DON’T WORRY IF YOU DON’T CRY. Everyone’s different and remember, this ain’t no Hollywood film. Me & my Mum just did a lot of gasping and a lot of whooping and a lot of squealing and saying ‘yeah, this is it. This is totally it’.

There were no tears. Only prosecco toasts and smiles all round.

And that’s absolutely fine.

You celebrate finding ‘the one’ however you like, and don’t measure your reaction against others. Because remember (see below)…

 

YOU’LL BE 10238% SURE WHEN YOU FIND HER. Yup, total cliche. But seriously, you’ll just know. Trust me.

 

Now I’m gonna go eat all the food and watch Line Of Duty (yep, crushing over this series atm). Happy evening people.

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1 Comment

  1. 22nd May 2017 / 5:07 pm

    Agree with all of this! I absolutely loved dress shopping and I knew 100% when I found the one!! x