I knew exactly the dress I wanted. Well, not exactly, I could see it in my head but had yet to find it in any bridal magazine or on any website. So when D's mom told me that this big Toronto bridal boutique was having their annual sale I was convinced, convinced, that I would not find it there either. It was still early January, D had proposed less than a month ago, I still had not set a date, and my maid of honour was in the hospital... but a sale on bridal gowns was just too tempting to pass up because, well - you never know!
The sale was on for four days and I went on the last day. There also happened to be a small snow storm that day, but hey, we live in Canada... what else would you expect?? My mom came with me, just the two of us. It was so nice to be with her, to talk to each other and be completely open and honest about things that we just can't be open about with other people. But I digress...
When we arrived, both mom and I decided that we did not want to pay the $2 to check our coats, we probably weren't going to be there long and we are always cold anyway. So in we went with no expectations so there would not be any disappointment. When we entered the showroom we were both pleasantly surprised how uncrowded it was. I had always pictured the Friends episode where they go the the sale and have to wrestle other women to get the dress they want.
Working on a budget, we headed straight to the $199.00 rack. I was hoping that maybe the reason I could not find my dream dress was because it was now a few years out of style. But it was not there. At that point I was prepared to say "OK, we didn't find a steal here. Time to go." But mom convinced me to keep looking through the rest of the dresses.
"We're here already, there's no sales pressure, so we might as well just have some fun and try on dresses."
"O.K."
We first went through the size 10 rack (keep in mind that bridal gown sizing is crazy) and pulled out 4 dresses to try on. None of them were what I saw in my mind of what I would wear on my wedding day, but they were all beautiful. There were dressing rooms set up all around the outside of the big ballroom/showroom made out of tent poles and blue drapes. We chose the one with no light (oops!). I tried on all four dresses and as I was trying on the second one, mom remembered to take some pictures for my sister. No I will not be posting them anywhere.
I decided two of them were worth holding on to even though they were all a little big and we headed back to the racks in search of more. This time we went through the size 8 rack. Here we found a whole bunch of dresses I liked. Mom was carrying 4 or 5, and I had 4 or 5 and we were heading back to the change room to try them on when I saw it. The bottom of the dress sticking out between two others. With my last free hand I grabbed the dress without even looking at the top of the dress or the price and knew it was the one. When we got back to the dressing room mom could tell by the stupid grin on my face that I had found it. I tried it on first, and it fit perfectly! Mom looked around the little change room at the 10 other dresses that were hung haphazardly along with our winter coats, purses and snow boots.
"Do you even want to try any of these other ones on?"
"No"
But this was not how this was supposed to go! I wasn't supposed to find the perfect dress today! I was supposed to go dress shopping with my sister and bridesmaid and my cousin said she wanted to go too. How was I going to tell them that I had gone without them and found a dress on my own? This was altogether too complicated because it just wasn't supposed to be this easy. Too easy... there must be something wrong. I need to think about this. We asked if they could hold the dress while we went to go and get coffee to think it over. They said they could not hold the dress if we left. Shit! OK, so we won't leave. We put the dress back in the little change room with our coats and a few other dresses to make it look like we were coming back any second to try on more and we took our purses and went to think.
Since we didn't have our coats we didn't actually leave the showroom, instead, we wandered through the accessories and bridesmaids dresses and talked about how this was just too easy. What if I left it and then never found another one like it? I would kick my self. This dress is at the top end of my budget (still within budget), but what if I get it, and find one just like it for much cheaper? I would kick my self. This was a big decision. I have never spend that much on clothing, let alone one piece of clothing that I was going to wear once! After an hour of wandering, I finally decided to get the dress.
First big decision down, a million more to go!
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