Sunday, August 30, 2009

Reception Dress Search: Pt. 1

Back in June my dress came in. I loved her then and I love her now. Here is a reminder of my girl. What I didn't love? The tightness factor. Thus began my search for a short reception dress.

Miss Mary Jane on Weddingbee helped me in my search immensely (although I doubt she knows it.) This post helped not only her in her search for a short, white dress, but me as well. As my "short dresses" bookmarks grew I became increasingly discouraged. So. Many. Dresses. Plus, most were in my price range, so it's not like I could eliminate too many based on that.

Finally I decided I needed to take a break. There was no point in spending hours looking at short white dresses because they all started to look the same. So after a nearly 1-month sabbatical, I opened up all of my short dress bookmarks and began weeding out the ones I didn't love. Of course I *liked* all of them, but if I was going to buy another dress, I wanted to LOVE it.

Armed with my credit card and a good understanding of various return policies, I purchased 2 dresses. They arrived a few days later which was nice because I do not want to stress over this any longer than I have to. So without further ado, here are the dresses.

The first is from David's Bridal. Normally I would shudder at the idea of buying anything from there. I've heard too many horror stories, both from brides on the internet and girls I personally know. But they have an online dress collection that includes a good number of short dresses at extremely reasonable prices. This dress was only $139, well within my budget. Here it is on the model:

And here it is on me:


Huh...not really feeling it. It doesn't look half bad in this picture, but in real life it just doesn't work. Originally I liked it because the bubble hem mimicked the hem on my "big dress." But in the end it just wasn't right. It was tight under my boobs, something I knew would make me uncomfortable all night. No thanks!

The other dress is from Nordstrom. I love Nordstrom so much. We have one in Northeast Ohio but their formal dress selection is CRAP, so I just order dresses online and return them to the store if I don't like them. This dress was about $150, also well within budget. Here it is on the model:

And here it is on me:


Better but...I don't know. I thought I loved it when I first tried it on, and in this picture it looks pretty good, but I just don't think it's fancy enough. Our wedding is pretty formal and I think my reception dress should be more formal than this. If I were having an informal outside wedding, or a courthouse wedding, or maybe a beach wedding this dress would be perfect. But for the soiree we're throwing, it's just not right.

Stay tuned for Part 2 (which, much to my dismay, is not the conclusion.)

6 comments:

  1. Sadly, we are not color twins anymore! I am actually about to do a post on our new color palette...we just changed it last week for various reasons!

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  2. Oh and PS, I actually really like both dresses! Love the strapless one. I get what you're saying about wanting something more formal though. At least it makes for fun shopping, right? :)

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  3. I tried on so many dresses that were just... Meh. You'll find something you love soon, don't get discouraged! The DB one is pretty cute btw. But if you don't love it, forget it!

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  4. I have seen best variety of wedding dresses at Nordstrom... I like this selection so much!!

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  5. I too LOVE Nordstrom. You are looking more beautiful than those female models.

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  6. such a nice post! Its no hard to find a bridal reception dress.And it would make a comfortable to wear this.

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