Happily Ever Johnson: Wedding Dresses

I'm so excited to be posting about this. I've been asked a lot when I was going to start shopping for my wedding dress. I wanted to wait until I had my venue booked to start looking. Depending on where ceremony and reception was going to held is how I was going to base the wedding dress shopping on. I did a little research on first time wedding dress shopping and found some great tips. The most important thing is to know your budget! You don't want to fall in love with a dress you can't afford. The consultant does ask what your budget is and your max that you would want to spend. It helps to have some idea of what you want and to bring pictures from Pinterest or the Internet to help the consultant get an idea of what you like and don't like. I have so many pictures saved on Pinterest of dresses I like. Another tip was to keep the makeup at a minimum. You don't want to get foundation all over the dresses you are trying on. I skipped the foundation and just wore mascara, some liner, filled in my brows and a lip gloss. Its helps to bring shoes with you and wear a strapless bra. Some bridal places do provide you with one if you forget or don't have one. Also I read not to bring too many people to the appointment with you. I know I didn't want too many people at the appointment with me. Everyone has their opinion on what you should wear but at the end of the day, it is your day and you will be the one in the dress.

For my first appointment, I took the moms with me. I know they have been waiting for this day. I did a little research on my own for local bridal shops in my area and went to a place called the Bridal Garden. The consultant I had for my appointment was so helpful and very nice. She understood what I was looking for and pulled a lot of great choices for me. Funny thing is the moms kinda took over the appointment but they meant well. They were taking so many pictures and asking to pose this way, look that way, don't move, it was too funny. Before the appointment, I had in mind that I wanted a mermaid or trumpet style. Since we are doing a destination wedding, I had to look for a dress that was going to be lightweight and perfect for the beach ceremony. I was kind of thrown off because we changed venues but I loved everything about wedding dress shopping. I didn't want to decide at my first appointment but got an idea on what style looks good on me, what fabric to look for and so on. Here are a couple pictures from the first appointment,

I recently went with one of my bridesmaids to look at dresses. She has been through this process before so it was helpful to have her there. I tried on so many different styles and found myself to like styles outside of mermaid and trumpet. She also tried on some bridesmaid dresses as well so I can get an idea of what I liked and didn't like, I guess that will be in another post. Here is a dress I tried on from that appointment.

I still want to look around at a few more places before making a final decision. It seems like it would be hard to pick the dress but I have an idea on what I envision myself wearing on our big day. What was your experience with shopping for wedding dresses? Any tips? Comment below and let me know. See you guys Thursday!

Have you checked out my previous post from my series On a personal note??