Happy Thursday, Everyone! This week’s wedding post is all about my Wedding dress and accessories. This is the one of the posts I’ve been most excited to write and share with you because I absolutely loved everything about my dress and the accessories I wore on my wedding day.
The Dress
My Wedding dress is from Lela Rose’s Spring 2019 collection and the name of the dress is “The Darlington“. I mean…how cute and perfect is that name?! This dress is truly everything the little girl inside me always imagined myself in on my wedding day. If you’ve been following me for some time, you probably already know I have a pretty classic style mixed with fun, subtle, feminine details. For my wedding day I wanted something that would reflect my personal style. A clean, polished and classic bridal dress embellished with subtle, pretty, whimsical and feminine details. The Darlington checked all those boxes and so much more. It was truly a dream come true to wear this dress!
You can read more about my fun little journey that brought me to my dream dress at the bottom of this post!
The Veil
The bridal salon wasn’t sure if there was a veil to match the dress so naturally, I started dreaming up how I could have a matching veil made. I was ecstatic when I found out that there WAS actually already a matching veil and I wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of having one made. The matching veil was 10x more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. The cathedral length helped to make the train look even longer and I love how the petals extended all the way down the back.
The Shoes
I found my Wedding shoes long before I even start looking for dresses. I saw them on Over The Moon’s Instagram post predicting what Meghan Markle would wear on her wedding day and hunted them down right away. The second I saw them I knew that I had to wear them for my walk down the aisle. It was one of the easiest and very first wedding planning decisions I made. The block heel made them much easier to walk in and super comfortable and I just couldn’t resist the pearl and crystal details. I also love these shoes because I’ll be able to wear them again in the future on our anniversary or for other special occasions! My shoes are by Sophia Webster and they are unfortunately no longer available but she has some really similar styles for non brides like this pair and so many cute shoes in general!
The Accessories
Earrings: I knew I would be doing my hair up so I wanted something that would stand out but not be too much. My J.Crew double drop earrings were exactly what I was looking for – similar here. I also got them for all of my bridesmaids. I loved that I had a little something that matched my girls.
Aquamarine Ring: The Blue Ring I wore on my right hand was “my something blue and something borrowed”. The ring was my Grandmothers. She passed it down to my mom who had it resized for me to wear on our wedding day. It meant so much to me that my mom had this done and that I got to have a piece of my DeDe with me on our Wedding Day.
Monagram Clutch: My sister-in-law gave me the CUTEST clutch as a personal shower gift and I was SO excited because I realized I had no idea what purse I was going to use on our wedding day. It is truly the most adorable wedding gift that I highly recommend giving to any Bride to Be! You can find them on Etsy here or here. My bag also has a pink heart with the date in the middle when you open the bag up. Its so cute.
Finding the Dress
Before I started looking for my dress, I had a general idea of what I wanted – you can see some of my initial inspiration on my Wedding Pinterest board. I started my dress search in Chicago at a few different bridal salons including Lovely Bride, Dimitras, Ultimate Bride and Glamour Closet. I ended up finding a dress that I really liked at Lovely Bride that was designed by Suzanne Neville. However, I had a few things I wanted to change about the dress and felt like it was missing something.
I had always dreamed of/planned to go dress shopping with my Mom and Aunt Jody in New York but I was nervous that I was going to confuse myself if I tried on too many dresses. Ultimately, I realized that there isn’t any other time in your life that you get to got to New York with your Mom and Aunt to try on a bunch of big, beautiful couture gowns. I knew I would regret it if I didn’t have that experience with them.
I had six appointments over the course of two days and probably tried on over 50 dresses! The bridal salons I visited included Oscar De La Renta, Amsale, Wedding Atelier, L’Fay, Vera Wang and Gabriella.
I fell in LOVE with the first dress I tried on at Oscar De La Renta and realized that the dress I loved back in Chicago was definitely not right for me! Unfortunately, that Oscar dress that I loved so much was a little out of my budget. It was also a little too Runway for me and I was worried I would regret not having something that was more “Bridal”. So now I was on the hunt for something similar to “The Oscar Dress” as we called it. The next four appointments proved to be a bit disappointing. I found some VERY pretty dresses, but nothing wowed me or felt as right as the first one I tried on.
I considered not even going to our final appointment of the trip at Gabriella because I was so confused and sick of trying on dresses. I went anyways and lo and behold the dress of my dreams was there waiting for me. The designer, Lela Rose, was having a trunk show at this particular bridal salon featuring her Spring 2019 collection. The crazy part was that those dresses wouldn’t be available in any boutiques for MONTHS so there’s no way I ever would have found my dress if I hadn’t gone to that Bridal Salon on that exact weekend. As soon as I tried the dress on I teared up and felt like the little bride I had always imagined myself to be as a little girl. It was truly meant to be.
I ended up being able to have the dress shipped to Dimitra’s in Chicago so I could do my alterations there instead of having to fly to New York.
While finding my dress wasn’t the easiest experience, it was definitely worth it to not settle on the first dress I “liked”.
Here’s a little peek at the dresses I mentioned above!
From left to right: The very first dress I tried on which was by Carolina Herrera, The first dress I fell in love with in Chicago by Suzanne Neville, The Oscar De La Renta Dress that made me realize I wanted something different, The first time I tried on my dream dress by Lela Rose
