And The Search Continues...

Let me start this by putting in a disclaimer. I've never believed in The Dress. Wedding dresses usually seemed ridiculous to me. This is a morality tale about The Dress.

As some of you may know, today I went dress shopping with my mom and Jenna at the Brides Against Breast Cancer trunk show. We paid for "VIP" tickets so we could have early admission before the show was opened to the general public. The morning went smoothly after we each had a glass of champagne and brunch. When we were finally ready to go in I was a bundle of nerves. I'm still not entirely sure why I was so nervous. The dresses were sorted by size and there was a separate section for couture gowns. We must have tried on 15 or more dresses when I found the "One". There was a serious problem though, the dress was double my budget. I could hear the guy from "Say Yes to the Dress" explaining the cardinal rule of wedding dress shopping (which, by the way, is, "Never try on a dress that is over your budget.") That's sound advice but when you love a specific dress it doesn't always work out that way.

I left The Dress behind and we picked out a few more to try on. As we were heading to the changing area I saw a girl trying on MY dress. It was gorgeous. I felt angry and sad that she could possibly get this dress. Lo and behold, as fate would have it, she did not buy The Dress. It was returned to the racks (possibly to taunt me, I'm not exactly sure). Since The Dress was the only one like it in the whole show I decided to try it on. BIG mistake. When I stepped in front of the mirror I felt like a goddess. The Dress was everything I had imagined-- except the price. I was so close to tears and Jenna said, "Okay let's take it off now," I refused. One look at my mother's face was enough to confirm that even though this was THE Dress it couldn't be MY dress. As I was blatantly stalling so I didn't have to take off The Dress, a volunteer came up and asked if we were going to buy it. My mom said no and the volunteer explained that someone else wanted to try it on.

As we were walking out the door, I looked back and The Dress was back on the rack waiting for it's new owner. I still can't get the image of The Dress out of my mind. Hopefully, I can find one similar enough to it tomorrow when we go boutique wedding dress shopping with my aunt. Moral of the story:

NEVER EVER EVER try on a dress out of your budget. It will only end in tears, heartache and anger =P

Maybe dresses are like partners, "There are always more fish in the sea." But what if The Dress was like your first love. The one you compare all others to. I have to keep hoping that maybe The Dress is still out there for me.