The Stress Of The Dress, Part 3: The Happy Conclusion!

Let's see, where were we? Oh yes, I left you hanging right before my last appointment of the day!

But before I continue, on the off chance that Mr. Cola is reading this, STOP! Please no looking past this point!


{Source}

Ok, now that it's safe....

My last appointment was at Bay Area Bridal, which was probably the nicest looking of all the stores we visited on our marathon day. I entered my contact info into their computer system, and my super nice consultant took my sample photos to look for similar dresses while I browsed through their books for additional styles for her to pull. She loaded the dressing room with about 8 dresses, and we got started.

What dress did she pull out first for me to try? The Sophia Tolli Alexandria (Y1810) dress that had gotten me actually excited about dress shopping! And that's when the magic happened. As she pulled it on, it was about up to my belly button and I was looking in the mirror in the dressing room, and I just knew it was going to be THE ONE!

Apparently my mom and sister knew too, because I came out of the dressing room with a happy and determined look on my face. My sister took several pictures, even though I'm not 100% sure they were allowed, but there were no signs saying we couldn't!

And without further ado, here are some pics of me in my dress (except I ordered it in Spun Gold, not the diamond white that I tried on)!!!

(I do sort of have a smug, self-satisfied look on my face, don't I? All I was thinking was "I LOVE THIS DRESS!" over and over in my mind.)

I just love the beading on the bodice, and the crystals and pearls are going to pop even more in the light gold color, plus I won't look as pale. After trying on this dress, I tried on another Sophia Tolli in the spun gold color, and I was 110% set, not just on the dress, but on the color too.

I tried to PhotoShop it to the gold color, this is sort of close to what it will look like:

(ignore the white veil, I haven't gotten around to adjusting the color on that yet.)

After trying the gold dress, my consultant asked me what I thought and I said I wanted the dress! She responded, "don't you want to try any of the other dresses?" to which I replied "Nope!" I knew I'd found the perfect dress, as stereotype-ish as that sounds. Paperwork filled out, half down on $1,190 less the 15% discount they offered me and I walked (skipped?) out of the store, soooo super happy! (as a side note, I actually thought the dress was $1100, not $1190, but oh well. Every place we went seemed really good about rounding down the dress prices they quoted us. $90 extra isn't a big deal in the whole scheme of things, but might be something to watch out for if you're dress shopping)

And because I'm an all-things-wedding-related-internet-stalker, here are some more beautiful pictures of the dress I've found online:

{Source for pics 1-3, Source for pics 4-5, Source for pics 6-8}

The last three pictures show the spun gold color really well. I know my mom wanted me to get something in ivory, but I've had the idea in my head forever that I wanted a champagne/gold toned dress, and it looks so much better on my impossible-to-tan Irish skin tone! And as my sister said, the gold has so much more pizazz! I think, if possible, I'm even more excited now after finding these photos!

Did you "just know" when you tried on your dress that it was the one, or did you keep looking after trying it on, just to be sure?