Wedding Dress Shopping - Minnesota

While I was in Minnesota for Thanksgiving, I went on my second round of wedding dress shopping appointments. On Wednesday afternoon, my mom, Katie, and I went to Bella Bridal. It was a cute store - it had a pretty good collection and the people were really nice. I found a couple dresses that I liked, though none that was my overall favorite.

On Friday, we went out again - this time to three different places, and Mamie came too. The first stop was Monique Lhuillier. Monique Lhuillier has only two Flagship Salons - one in L.A. and one in Minneapolis - pretty cool! I love her style, so almost all of the dresses were things that I loved. I tried on a bunch of different options (the person helping me was very patient - I kept grabbing more things on our walk back and forth to the dressing room), and had three favorites that were all really great. The main problem was that I hadn't discussed my budget with the person helping me, and forgot to watch the price tags, so it turned out that one of the dresses I had really liked was $14,500. Yikes. But the one I liked most was only just barely over my price limit, so that one is still in the running - it's actually one of my top two options at the moment.

Our next stop was L'Atelier Couture, which was a really nice little designer boutique. They had a really pretty collection of gowns (though some were out of my price range - but at least I remembered to watch for that this time). The people helping me were really nice, and the service was just really good overall. I tried on the dress from the Sex in the City movie, which was really fun and pretty, though seemed like it would be hard to dance in. They had a really spacious dressing room, which was really nice, and there was a big mirror, so you could see how you looked as you walked away, or as you were walking back to the dressing room.

The last stop of the day was at the Wedding Shoppe on Grand Ave. in St. Paul. It has a very large selection, but it was soooo crowded. You sometimes had to wait to have a spot to stand in the mirror, and sometimes Katie, Mamie, and my Mom had a hard time making sure I could hear their comments about each dress. I think the combination of it being the end of the day and being so crowded made it hard to really appreciate the dresses. My two favorites were the two that were in the window when we came in, which the person helping me went and got off the mannequins. But they don't allow you to take pictures, so it's hard for me to really incorporate them into my overall search. We'll see, though.

Once again, I'm not posting any pictures, so that Jeff doesn't see them, but I do have the photos uploaded to picasa. I have two albums - one with every picture of every dress, and one that's just a collection of pictures of my favorites. Let me know if you want to see them! My top two dresses at the moment are Sabine by Monique Lhuillier and Peggy Sue by Matthew Christopher!