I found my dress...

Jocelyn and I went to La Soie in the Tustin Marketplace last week to try on dresses with no intention of buying or liking... I just wanted to get an idea of what I might like based off of what I found online. I really fell in love with Maggie Sottero. Jocelyn also had a Maggie gown for her wedding, I knew of some other girls who had a Maggie gown as well... and after looking at her website dozens of times, I finally figured that I wanted to try some on. So, we went... I brought some pics that I had printed from the Maggie website. I had my heart set on a mermaid style gown, strapless with a sweetheart neckline... tried on my first mermaid and was made blatantly aware of how flat my ass is... (even though I secretly already knew... I'm filipino, we have no ass, THANKS MOM!) I tried on a few of the other ones that I had been eyeing and a few that we saw at the store, and really liked one or two of them. Funny, whenever we were left alone in the changing room, Joc would whip out her camera and snap some quick photos. We thought we were so incognito... come to find out that this store allows the clients to take pictures of the gowns!

Anyhoo, so then Linda, my fabulous bridal consultant, brought in this fitted A-line strapless with a sweetheart neckline. Joc and I were not impressed. On the hanger, this thing looked... well... terrible. Kinda boring, not really what I had envisioned. But she made me try it on, so I did... and I loved. She put a veil on my head and it was all over after that. You know, the stupid cheesy reality t.v. shows, like "Say Yes To The Dress"... where the bride-to-be puts on the gown, she walks out, and her mom and whoever else is there is brought down by gasps and tears... IT'S ALL TRUE! But I decided to bite my lip, not cry, and wait til my mom was with me. So, we made another appt for a week later, where I would bring my mom, Jenn (my MOH), and Jocelyn...

Cut to last night (Tuesday 10/21/08)... my appt was after work. Joc & I left work and met up with my mom and Jenn at the store. I had asked my mom to pick a few more dresses for me to try on so that she could get an idea as to what silhouette she might like on me. We picked a sheath that was on a mannequin, a more traditional A-line, and some others... The first dress I tried on was the sheath that they had to undress the mannequin for... beautiful on the mannequin, not so much on me. It's tough being 5'2" in a 5'10" world...

Then I tried on a Casablanca, more traditional satin A-line, gown. This thing had a heavily beaded bodice, and then the bottom was plain, just satin... and it was GORGEOUS. My mom was SOLD. They made me walk around the store with the veil on my head so they could take pictures... the gown was AMAZING! I automatically knew that at the end of this session, my decision would be between the one from the previous week and the one I had on.

Of course, to give my mom a wide array of looks, we told her that I should try on a few more. I think I tried on like seven dresses... we were all parched and breaking out into a sweat! My mom gave a few tears, but I think it was more out of excitement of what's to come, rather than what I had on at the time. So, we saved the other Maggie Sottero dress for last... when Jenn and my mom saw it on the hanger, I wasn't really getting much of a response from them, so I was worried... but remembered that Joc and I had felt the same way just a week before. I put the dress on and Linda, poor thing, laced the entire thing up. It has a corsetted back (As Rachel would say "GEORGE" - that's French for "GORGEOUS"!! - haha!), so she laced the entire thing up to get the full effect of the dress. I put the shoes on, put my hair up, Joc put the veil on with some earrings... and it was clear what dress I was going to choose. The dress goes with the whole winery, garden, outdoorsy theme... Everybody, including myself, LOVED the one I had on...

So anyways, long story short (too late)... I FOUND MY DRESS!!!

Don't forget to check out our wedding page: http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/AnnalizaVictoria&CorySmith