When I First Fell in Love... With a dress!

I was a fish out of water after getting engaged. Our engagement was a complete surprise to me, and I knew almost nothing about the wondrous world of weddings and wedding planning. One of the first things, I did was join the Knot. When I first started planning it was like my bible. I looked for everything on the Knot from bridesmaids dresses to wedding traditions. I quickly became a fan of the daily wedding obsession blog, and I checked every day to see what new ideas were posted.

Shortly after President Obama's inauguration, a post was put up about wedding dresses similar to Michelle's dress. That was the moment I fell in LOVE.
The dress is by Romona Keveza. I loved it because it was light and airy. So Romantic! It had just enough sparkle, but it wasn't over powering. This was at the beginning of my wedding planning, and I was still a little naive about wedding stuff. I didn't have a budget or price range ideas. All I knew is that I loved this dress.

I found the store in the Seattle area that sold Romona Keveza's dresses and found that she was having a trunk show within the month! I was so excited, and I called the store. They asked me to come in to try on dresses and get a feel for what I like and what I looked good in. I made an appointment for that Friday.

I was at first a little sad because I wanted my mom, sister, and aunt to be present during all of the wedding dress shopping adventures. I felt that having those three present would make the process more real. Unfortunately, they couldn't be there on my first adventure due to distance, but I needed moral support and asked my co-worker (recently married) if she wanted to go. I think she might have been more excited than me. She found the bus route and had her bag packed well before we had to leave.

When we got there I was definitely intimidated. I didn't know that Romona was a designer name, and the search for her dress would take me to a store that sold Vera Wang and other designer dresses. My consultant knew that I was interested in Romona Kaveza, and I spilled about my love for the dress. She told me that they didn't have the dress, but it might come in for the trunk show. She still wanted me to try on dress, but I was still very intimidated. There were so many gorgeous dresses, and i was a little scared to try them on. I'm very glad that I had someone with me. My friend gave me the push I needed to try on several dresses. They were all so beautiful, and I even got a chance to try on a Wang dress!

After the fashion show, I asked about the dress. The good news was that trunk shows gave a 10% discount and free special requests. The bad new the dress was a couture dress and the store estimated a price tag of 6,000 to 8,000. I kept my appointment for the trunk show, but knew it wasn't a reality. I just wanted to keep the hope alive for a little while longer. I canceled the appointment a few days later. I had to come to terms with reality and our wedding budget, but the dress gave me a great start to looking for my dress. It became my outline for my wedding dress search. Light, Romantic, and Unique.

Did you fall in love with a dress that was out of your budget? Did you fall in love with a dress without even trying it on?