Dress Story- Part 1

So a couple weeks ago I finally ordered my dress!  It's sort of a long story but I will try to summarize it the best I can.
You can read about some issues I had with getting myself to dress shop here:
Where's the time gone and Wedding Dress Blues

What I ended up doing was I decided I would go to a few dress stores in California to get an idea on what I like and then I would go to Texas for a weekend to make my final choice with my family.  The few weeks went by quick but in the end I got my dress!

The first shop I went to was David's Bridal.  I was a little nervous that they would be pushy but luckily the dress consultant I was paired with was really nice and not pushy at all!  I took Jared with me because I really don't mind if he sees the dress beforehand.  He's always really helpful when we go shopping so I wanted him to be there.
I had Jared armed with both my phone and my camera for him to take photos.  He texted pictures of the dresses to my family as I tried them on.  The photos he took on my other camera I emailed to my family later that day.  It ended up working out pretty well!
The dress consultant was great- she let me try on every single dress on my list and gave me some space after I tried on each dress so that Jared could take pictures and I could get a feel for the dress.  It was a really nice experience!  There was even a dress I liked there.

Our next stop in California was an Alfred Angelo.  Here I was able to try a few of the Disney dresses- Belle and Cinderella.  I really liked these but the Cinderella dress was a bit too puffy for me and the Belle dress felt heavy.  They were beautiful dresses and so much fun to try on but they were not quite me.

This dress was beautiful but wasn't the one for me.

I did try on another dress that I really liked that actually reminded me of Belle even though it wasn't a Disney dress.  I thought it was the one but unfortunately the consultant I had was putting a little too much pressure on me to purchase it right away.  She got me to the counter to check out and place my order but I froze and told her I wanted to wait.  I'm very glad I did!
Those were the two places I went to in California.  The next two places I went to were in Texas.  I will tell this part of the story in my next post so stay tuned!