ummm....oops?

sorry guys!  i totally just realized that i left you guys hanging...oops!


without further ado...my dress!

front

back

so...i'm showing you this on the model first because the dress i tried on was 8 sizes too big!  so, the pictures i have aren't the best...

the front will probably not go so low on me and the dress is obviously a little long...

i LOVE the back and how it dips slightly.  you'll have to look at the model to see that, it doesn't show well with the large clamp on it.  :)

close up of the lace and my favorite part - DOTTED SWISS!!

close up of the lace and scallops of the top part.  the beading is only on the top half of the dress.

i absolutely LOVE my dress!  it's a mori lee dress and we got it at kari lynn's in mcpherson, ks.  it combines all of my favorite parts of every dress i tried on, the lace, the dotted swiss, the modified sweetheart neckline, the small amount of beading, and the intricate detail of the scallops!

the UUUUUUUGLY!

okay, okay, none of them are THAT ugly!  but it ain't gonna be pretty, that's for sure.


without further ado...

okay, so there's nothing really that ugly about this dress.  and it just does nothing for my body type at all.  and i hate pick ups, for sure.  moving on....

HAHAHAHA!  look at my face!  there's no pretending that i liked this dress.  i looked and felt ginormous in it!  and i thought it aged me a ton.  don't you think?  is it just me?  i think i look over 30 in this picture, but maybe it's because i'm actually frowning.  i'm SOOOO obviously not loving this dress.  wow, the picture is even worse than it was in person.

i told you that you'd get to see my in some mermaid dresses!!  this is actually a drop waist, but it's low enough i'll call it a mermaid.  and, well, i looked like a friggin' stuffed sausage.  'nuff said!

in case you needed further proof, another low drop waist.  this dress would be so beautiful on a skinny minny!  look at that rouching and bead work.  swoon!  seriously, i wish i could have loved it.  

i actually did like this dress when i had it on, but i thought the belt hit me kind of weird.  and now that i see the picture, i'm putting it in the ugly section.  because, don't you think it makes me look all weirdly proportioned?  is it just me?  that sash just looks really strange.

HAHAHAHAHA!  look at my poor boobs, they are just DYING to get out of this dress!  again, this dress would be so gorgeous on someone who was proportioned right (although, i have to say, i really hate this color...it washes everyone out...) but only about half of my boobs made it into the dress.

up next...THE DRESS!

the bad...

okay...i've already said it in the previous post, but none of these dresses are actually bad or ugly, they just didn't look great on me.


that being said, here's some of what i would call "the bad" dresses on me...

this dress was pretty, but way to princess-ey for me.  i am, however, smiling!  want to know why?  this dress was a size two!  hahaha, notice the back?  uhh....yeah....anyways...

wow, this picture is horrible of me, but this dress just proves that not all boobies fit in places where boobies should.  i liked this dress quite a bit, but that gorgeous beading that is supposed to hit right under my bust, well, is obviously hitting on my bust.  not so much.

i had high hopes for this dress, but it just didn't do anything for me.  i wasn't a huge fan of the overlay looking thing and i was so hot the whole time i had it on.  once again, i'm just not a huge fan of heavy materials.

i told kyle i would try on one short dress.  so i did.  i didn't like it one bit, other than you could see my shoes!  :)

i've loved every single picture i've seen of dresses like these, with a lovely flower and flowing materials.  uh, yeah, when the flower is WHITE, it blends in with the material.  and makes me look huge.  next....

i really liked this dress on, it was so nice and light and airy.  i didn't like that it didn't have a train and now that i see myself in the picture, the faux wrap neckline looks really weird, like it's trying to hard to look wrapped.  hmmm....

wow, i look super happy to be in this dress, no?  :)  i liked the dress, but that thing that wrapped around me looked so weird.

next up, the UGLY!

some more of "the good"

so i was looking through some more of my pictures and i decided that i just couldn't NOT show you some more of the dresses that i really liked.  so, without further ado, here are some more of the good dresses!

here's another one from kari lynn's in mcpherson.  my mom did a great job picking this one out!  i really loved the way it felt when i walked and it was so nice and simple.  unfortunately, it had about 15 layers of that silk chiffon and i was dripping with sweat, so i was worried about how hot it would be on my actual wedding day.  still loved the dress.  (have i mentioned how much i love corset backs?!?)

this dress was so sweet and simple, i really liked it a lot.  i loved the short train and the simple broach-like detail.  but, i seriously could not bring myself to pay how much they were asking for this dress.  i'm not even going to say how much it was, but just know that i would not buy it just because of the price.

ahhhhh...the pleated dress!  see how similar it is to one of the dresses from my last post?  i loved this dress for three reasons. 1. dotted swiss, what can i say, i ADORE IT! 2. the pleats!  hello, unexpected design element! and 3. the corset back.

this is the back of the dress.  sigh...it was really beautiful, but so incredibly formal.  way too formal for my casual wedding.  and truth be told, the lace was actually pretty itchy.  and the sample dress was torn, which made me weary of the strength of the lace.

another simple and sweet dress, imagine that!  i think you are probably seeing a trend here.  i like simple, lace and vintage looking.  the little ruffles are so cute and this dress is a maggie sottero (sighhhhh...love her) but honestly, the shop i tried it on at just wasn't for me.  it had a scented HVAC system and since i'm allergic to pretty much any scent, i had a migraine for most of the time i was there.

OKAAAAYYYYY, i promise that is the last of the good's and next we are on to the bad's!!!

the good...

alright ladies (and men i suppose, if you are there), i promised these were coming, so here they are in all their glory!


oh, in case you didn't know, this is going to be the first in my "the good, the bad and the ugly"* wedding dress posts.


the first weekend in feburary, my maid of honor was able to come down for a weekend and she, my mom, kyle's mom, my mom's friend cindy and my other friend (and coordinator) julie all trekked out to THREE wedding dress shops in wichita.  then about 2 weeks after that, i dragged one of my bridesmaids, kara, and my mom back to one of the shops to try to narrow it down.  then, i got frustrated.  i didn't really LOVE anything, but i really LIKED a lot of them.  so i ignored the fact that i needed a dress for a while....and then i had my google calendar (do you guys use google calendar?  love that thing...) anyways, it popped up that i needed to order my wedding dress that month.  i was told by nearly every single shop i went to that i needed to order it by 6 months to my wedding date, which is april 25th, in order to get all the alterations and such done.  kara mentioned a friend of hers that got their dress at this little shop in mcpherson (about an hour from wichita) and they loved their experience there!  so, i did what any good bride does and stalked their website for about two days.  :)  then, after i decided i was in love with the shop (they sell two of my favorite designers...) i told my mom and kyle's mom that we needed to go that following weekend.  and off we went!  i'll tell you now that i bought my dress that day.  i love it, and even though i love a bunch of other dresses that i see every day online, on blogs, in shop windows and stalking other dress shops websites, i still love my dress.  it's so me, it's not even funny.


so, onto "the good" dresses i found in my search!

i fell in love with this dress the second i saw it on accent bridal's facebook page, it was dotted swiss lace with a great accent sash that would minimize my waist.  BUUUTTT, when i tried it on, it was just way too poofy.  and, it was about 12 sizes too big and i was having trouble imagining what it should look like.

i don't know what it is about wedding dresses, but they make me put my hands on my hips.  i think it's the bare arms issue....anyway, this was the second dress i tried on during my first trip.  it was soooo soft and the lace and beading were so pretty!  i really liked the modified sweetheart neckline and that the sample dress fit me and that it had a corset back.  my problem?  it just didn't really do much for me other than i knew it looked good on me.  i didn't feel "wedding-y" but more that i was playing dress up with someone else's pretty dress.

this dress was actually brought to me by the owner of this shop and she told me that "this will be your wedding dress, i just know it."  well, she was close!  this is my second favorite dress from that day.  i honestly think that if i hadn't ordered the dress i did, i would have bought this one.  it was very flattering, even with how it was fitted around my hips (more on that under the "bad" and "ugly" posts...)  the thing that i didn't like and you can see in the second picture is the neckline.  i didn't like the straight across, and the lady told me there was no way to make it look right as a sweetheart.  one thing i've learned is that large chested women should wear dresses that flatter their chest, or deal with looking ten pounds heavier than they really do.

honestly, there are a ton more dresses that i tried on that i really, really, really liked.  but these were my top three that didn't make the cut.

stay tuned for even more to come!

* i'm not saying these dresses are bad, or ugly for that matter.  but, they either looked bad or ugly on ME!  i'm sure they are in fact gorgeous on some people, just not girls that are shaped like muah.  :)