THE Dress

I've been searching for quite a while - in New York, in Minnesota, back in New York... and I've finally made a decision, picked out the perfect dress, and bought it!

For those of you who want the whole story, read on. For those of you who don't want to know which dress I picked until the wedding, you should stop reading now! (Jeff, that means you!) Also, there are no pictures, but I do talk about the specific designer and dress.



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I'd been going back and forth about dresses for a while, discussed the choices at length with my sister, mom, and grandma. I've looked through the photos of different dresses a million times.

However, since the very first day of appointments, there has been one dress that's stood out, and that I've continued to have as one of my top choices since the first time I tried it on. I loved the Matthew Christopher gown right from the beginning, and I was still loving it after all of my appointments were over - probably almost 100 dresses later.

So I decided I would try it on one more time, make sure I really, really loved it, and then (as long as all goes well), buy it. So I called Gabriela's, which was the place that I had originally tried the dress. I said that I just wanted to come back and try one dress, and they said they were really busy, but they'd find a way to squeeze me in, and they asked which dress I wanted to try. But, when I told them it was Matthew Christopher's "Peggy Sue" dress, they told me that they don't actually have it in the store! There is only one sample of that dress, because it's brand new, and it travels around with Matthew Christopher for trunk shows.

So I looked online and found out that Matthew Christopher was doing a trunk show in West Orange, NJ, which is only about 30 minutes away (though 1.5 hours in NYC traffic). We called to make sure they had the dress and that they'd be able to fit me in to try it on, and then we booked a zipcar, and headed out!

Jeff drove the car (a mini cooper - zipcar is so cool!), but he stayed in the car during the appointment, so he wouldn't get even a glance at the dress. Katie and I went in, and Matthew Christopher was there. He recognized me from the last time I had tried on his dress - at the trunk show at Gabriela's.

So I put on the dress one more time, and, if possible, loved it even more! It's just a really pretty, handcrafted dress. The detailing is amazing and really unique. So I decided that was it was THE ONE. Matthew Christopher took the measurements himself, and he'll make a dress that is made to fit me specifically - soooo cool! We called my mom while we were at the appointment, and she talked to Matthew Christopher, too. He told her that he's originally from Iowa - yay for midwest connections!

So that's it! I bought a wedding dress!!!