I found my dress on the second week of shopping!!! Was not expecting to and am a little sad in that the experience is over because due to distance and my mother's health no one in the family got to particpate live and in person), but so so happy that I found the perfect dress.
Backstory...I found a Sophia Tolli dress online that I fell in love with. I literally called every bridal salon in Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma that carried her dresses and none of them had a sample gown. I even wrote to the designer and heard nothing back. I take that as a sign it was not meant to be. I tried on another of her dresses and liked it, but it was strapless and I am not a huge fan of the strapless dress. I had showed the dresses to my Dad and he was not a fan of any of them either. He wanted a dress like Kate wore in the royal wedding. I told him that was really hard to find and she had hers custom made. That's when he told me that I would look beautiful in a wooden barrel and red suspenders if that was what I chose to wear. (Code for you nor I can afford a custom made designer gown). So, I made appointments at two other salons. I found it at the first salon by combining two pieces of two different dresses. Had them disrobe the mannequin in the front of the store who was wearing a ball gown with a longsleaved lace bolero that buttoned up the back.. We, my girlfriends and I, loved the dress on the mannequin, but on me it was a little too poofy and cut me in half. We ended up taking the lace bolero from the mannequin's dress and adding it to the first dress I pulled from the rack to try on. Voila--THE DRESS. It is now called the Kate Dress, but when it comes in in September it will be renamed the Paige Dress. We went to the other appointment and tried on about 8 more dresses, but they all paled in comparison. Went back to the first salon and tried it on again. I got teary eyed when my girlfriends hugged me and congratulated me on how gorgeous the dress was.
On Sunday I was having a bit of worry about did I do the right thing and then I found some pictures I had torn out of magazines back in the early 90s when I was helping all my girlfriends plan their weedings. Guess what...all of them had sleeves with beautiful lace detailing. Now bring on September!!!
The Dress (sorry--phone camera quality):
http://i53.tinypic.com/mls1tx.jpghttp://i52.tinypic.com/2zyfofq.jpgThe Hounds:
Miss Gladys
http://i53.tinypic.com/107p6at.jpgMiss Lucy Bell
http://i55.tinypic.com/34snnkk.jpg