the story of my wedding dress

After shopping at a few boutiques to find my perfect wedding gown, I knew exactly what I wanted... fully lace & mermaid style. The next step was to find the perfect fully lace mermaid gown for me. Being that I danced my whole life and wore rhinestones galore, I thought my wedding dress would have at least a little beading or sparkle. Well we were at a boutique in Baton Rouge called Megan's Dress to the 9's, and as I was trying on some dresses, my mom and stepmom convinced me to try on a lace gown that had zero beading or sparkle on it. At first I was like "ehhh but isn't it kinda plain??" but they said we could always add to it.

So I put on the dress with the help of my amazing sister/maid of honor... we both were like wow this is REALLY pretty. I walk out of the dressing room and I saw myself in the big mirror and I was in love! My family loved the dress too, but that doesn't say much because they thought just about every dress was "THE dress" lol. 

The longer I stood there in the dress, I knew it was the one. We asked about the price... $1200. It wasn't really that expensive compared to some of the dresses I had tried on, but it was still high and I was really wishing to find a dress under $1000. My parents didn't have the deposit to put down that day, and we still had plans to go to one more boutique the next weekend, so we didn't get it.

The actual Mori Lee gown at Megan's dress to the 9's

Since we wrote down the info on the dress, my mom googled it later on in the week to see if she could find it cheaper. And she sure did! She found it on Deanna Bridals for.... $312!! Normally I would be skeptical about ordering a discounted version of a dress, but this one said Mori Lee- the designer name- on it so I thought it HAD to actually be it. So I ordered it.

We went to the last boutique the next weekend with a lot of my family and friends just for fun. I tried on a lot of dresses that weren't my style, and they all kept confirming my love for the dress I had already ordered. We then asked the lady who had been helping us for the past 3 hours if they carried my dress. (We didn't tell her we ordered the dress already) She brought out the dress, and it was exciting to get to show everyone else the dress, and they were all in love with it also.

The lady did the whole "say yes to the dress" with me and it was all exciting until she said she was going to get someone to get me fitted... Ohhh crap what do I tell this lady?! My family was telling me to tell her that we were going to leave and come back later after lunch... I couldn't do it y'all. She came back and I told her the truth. Man, was she MAD. She said "OH you ordered it from CHINA?! Good luck with that!"

My family was soooo embarrassed that I didn't just tell her we'd come back later! But I'm just such a terrible liar! I hurt that lady's feelings that she helped me for 3 hours and I had already ordered a dress, but at the end of the day, I didn't lie and I did the right thing... I think. Haha.

A couple weeks later my dress comes in the mail all folded up in a pretty small package. The bag said something like "wedding dress from China." That's when I got nervous. 

I tried the dress on, and much to my surprise it wasn't the actual designer gown, but it was pretty dang close to it.. and for a fourth of the price, it looked amazing to me!

I absolutely love my dress and I'm so happy that I could stick to my thrifty ways and find a dress for only $400 (with shipping)! :D

This is probably the longest blog post I've ever written, but I want to always remember the story of my wedding dress, and plus I think it's a pretty cool story to share, and I feel like it could provide some advice for ordering dresses online :)