Adventures in Dress Shopping

*** Wedding Dress Spoiler Alert!***

I finally ordered my beautiful Maggie Sottero gown last week and booked in my first fitting for September next year! So exciting! It took a few dresses though until I found 'the one' so I thought I'd do a recap of all the options.

I didn't go to one salon and try on a selection of dresses and chose my favourite, I had a look through a number of designers online and picked out my favourites and then tracked them down to different dress shops. The first dress I fell in love with was Chelsea by Ronald Joyce:

Chelsea - Ronald Joyce

I particularly liked the little jacket that came with this as I didn't really want a strapless dress. However, when I tried it on I didn't like the detail in the beading, a lot of it was moonstone and it wasn't really what I wanted. I also tried on some other dresses in the shop including a gorgeous princess dress that had sequins all over the top that went down into the skirt, beautiful but not me, I knew I wanted something a little more A-line.

I think out of all of these I liked the middle one best but wasn't so sure about the detail going all the way down the side. After thinking about it quite a lot I decided that none of the dresses I tried on were quite what I wanted. So I found another dress I liked and went to try it on:

Alfred Angelo 2181

Sadly this one did nothing for my figure! So I decided to have a look at what designers the wedding dress shop that is just down the road from me sold and that is when I came across Maggie Sottero. I had a look at the website and saw two dresses that I liked and to my amazement my local shop stocked samples of them both! The first was Asha:

Maggie Sottero - Asha

This dress was absolutely beautiful but it wasn't very weddingy if you know what I mean! I think it would have been wonderful for a destination wedding but didn't think it was quite right for mine. But then I tried on Mona and new instantly that she was the one!

Maggie Sottero - Mona

The fit of the dress was absolutely amazing, it made me look two sizes smaller and if it was made for my body shape! I never thought I would end up with a one shoulder gown but I love it, it looks so elegant. I also always wanted satin but this is chiffon but it hangs so beautifully, I'm so pleased with it. Sadly I don't have any photos of me in it but here's a close up of the hip detail that I took:

I'm hoping to make a matching cuff, will let you know how I get on! So what do you think of my choice?

Feeling Better :)

So I've had a few days to get over loosing my chief bridesmaid and I'm feeling a whole lot better about things. It's been such a busy week and so much has happened wedding wise!

On Tuesday I went to have my boudoir photo shoot that I won. I have to say I was quite nervous but the girls at For Your Eyes Only Portraits were amazing and I would thoroughly recommend them if you are thinking about having something like this done. I had to do my make-up as if I was going on a night out and take a variety of items with me like jewellery, heels, boots, underwear and negligee. When I got there I was whisked into the make-up room and one of their make-up artists then made me 'camera ready' by adding more make-up to what I had done myself. I was then taken in to the studio where I had to lay out all of my items and the photographer went through what she was going to ask me to do. I was in there for about an hour and she put me in all different poses and in all of the different things that I brought. I could hardly move the next day my muscles ached so much! The idea was that they got you looking your absolute best by the angle they shot you at and the position you were in so there was a lot of back arching to stretch the stomach flat and things like that. It really did work as the photos were amazing, I barely recognise myself! I guess it's just so different to see myself in that context though. I get one free picture from the shoot and it has been really difficult to chose but hopefully my fiancé will love it and I think it will make a great grooms gift!

On Wednesday I finally ordered my wedding dress but I'm going to save all the details of this for my next post as I think it deserves one to itself! I also won tickets to the Luxury Wedding Show in London on 23rd October which I'm super excited about! I doubt I'll be able to afford anything there but it will be nice to go and I'm taking my Mom so it will be a nice day out for us.

Today my fiancé and I have been to a local wedding show which has been very productive. I wanted to go to see a lady whose cakes I have been admiring for a while. What really attracted me to her were her flavours; lemon drizzle with limoncello buttercream, chocolate orange with cointreau swirl, cherry and amaretto are a few examples! We got to try the lemon and a chocolate and cherry cake with chocolate and rum frosting and they were absolutely delicious! I know it's probably all kinds of wrong to have alcohol infused cakes but we both love this idea so it works well that we are only having adults at the wedding! Here are a few examples of her work:

Elite Cake Designs

I think it's going to be really hard to chose a design, I love the alternate hearts and stripes, think this is really fun but I also love the simplicity of the cake decorated with ribbons and diamantés. We've booked an appointment for a cake tasting in October, can't wait!

We also might have found a videographer and a florist at the fair too! The videographer was offering a 25% discount and her prices seemed very reasonable so we are waiting for more information from her and the florist. Feels like everything is coming together slowly!

So quite a productive week which is good as we are going on vacation for two weeks on Tuesday so will be having a break from all the planning. Hope you are having a good weekend!