Playing "Dress Up"

So much progress has been made this week!!! 

I chose a date for our wedding- 

10/10/08

Oh I just love the way that looks. And it's not only aesthetically pleasing, it's also our 3rd anniversary! Plus, the air fairs are cheaper in October and so are the hotel rooms.

I'm so happy.

Mom and I made reservations to go to Maui and plan the wedding May 7th - 12th!!! (Poor Aaron is going to be sooooooo jealous.) I can't wait though.

I also finally went wedding dress shopping for the first time (at an actual wedding dress shop). Wow, is THAT fun and confusing. There were SOOOOO many good choices, from traditional to modern to vintage/hippy. There were good and bad points for all of them.

My favorite experience (and dresses) were found at Mon Amie Bridal in Costa Mesa. I would recommend this place to anyone! They not only had an amazing selection of dresses but their staff is awesome. We had Nicole and we adored her and she was very comfortable to be naked in front of.

My favorite was a dress by Pronovias, I had seen a dress just like it in on the internet... 

The first picture is the original photo I saw and fell in love with. The second (short) dress has the actual beading of the dress I tried on in the store...

This is me doing the hula in the lovely Pronovias dress. 

Then we went to David's Bridal to look at this dress. It seemed perfect for a beach wedding, and the price wasn't bad at around $500. But when I tried it on- it was ridiculously HEAVY. It seemed sorta counter-intuitive considering the beachy flowy look of the dress. Plus the sales experience there was awful. The guy who helped us was wearing a hideously bright pink vest with gross stains and it was so distracting I couldn't even remember his name, I just called him "pink vest." As I was struggling to put on a dress by myself, I overheard a manager berating one of his employees in front of everyone in the store. And the store! Ugh. It was set up so that everyone had to come out of their dressing room and stand on display for everyone else and their families to see you in your awkward fitting, itchy, wedding dress. It was just uncomfortable on so many levels.

Today we went to La Soie Bridal.

I'm not gonna lie, I looked great in this dress. But it was so boring. And there was some beading on it that drove me insane!

I found one dress by Tara Keely that was stunning.

I also looked at a Jim Hjelm dress that was really plain, strapless, typical, boring wedding dress that I liked, but when I got home and saw the pictures I realized that it kinda makes me look fat!

 Then we went back to Mon Amie bridal to take a look at the Pronovias dress again. :) I love that dress.

Aaron comes back form his fishing trip with my dad and brother tomorrow- I'm going to show him the pictures and see what he says. If he likes the Pronovias dress then I'm done shopping! If he doesn't then I'm going to keep on playing dress up...