A Tale of Three Wedding Dresses| Motivational Monday

Today’s guest post is brought to us by gorgeous bride Cate Conroy, the CEO & Chief Content Officer for Concentric Content Marketing. Can you believe she’s having a destination wedding in Ireland in just 6 short months?? Check out her story of how she ending up getting THREE wedding dresses and her Wedding dress shopping tips. 

It all started because I knew my boyfriend was going to propose. The first night we met he told me at he was going to marry me. Since then he’s repeated his claim, so it wasn’t a surprise when he asked me to look at rings with him.

Two weeks after he picked up the ring from the jeweler’s I found a gorgeous dress online. It fell well within my budget, it was the last one and it was in my size. I ordered it immediately, even though technically, my boyfriend hadn’t proposed.

For the record, I’m not a particularly impulsive person. I do tend to go with my instinct, but I always make sure I have the data to back me up. I’m not one to jump without thinking through the landing.

Which is why it wasn’t a surprise that within a week, my now-fiancé proposed and a few days later, my dress arrived.

I was ecstatic at my foresight, three days engaged and I had my dress already! I tried it on and my excitement turned to disappointment. The quality wasn’t what I was looking for and the color didn’t go well with my skin tone.

Quickly my disappointment turned to embarrassment. I sheepishly told my fiancé about the dress and he assured me that returning a wedding dress wasn’t something to be embarrassed about.

I sent the dress back and made an appointment to go shopping with my mom, sister, and a friend whose opinion I trusted. I started doing research. I knew what would look best on me, and what fit my personal style. This time, I was ready.

When it came time for my appointment, I tried on all the dresses I had picked and a few picked out for me by the consultant. Everyone gave the obligatory oohs and ahhs but nothing stood out. As I tried on the last dress I remember thinking that while beautiful, it wasn’t my style.

But when I walked out, everyone in the room was floored. They kept saying “That’s the one, that’s the dress!” “It’s so YOU!!” I turned and looked at them incredulously. The words “Really?!? This is me?!?” escaped my mouth and everyone assured me that the dress was SO me… So I bought it.

Yeah, I did it again. The dress arrived at my house a few weeks later. I tried it on, twirled around in my bedroom and was happy.

The days began to pass and as I pictured myself walking down the aisle in the dress hanging in my closet, something didn’t feel right. That was when I knew I’d made another mistake.

How was this even possible? You would think I would have learned my lesson but apparently I hadn’t.

Once again, I found myself confiding in my fiancé that the dress just… wasn’t right. Once again, he told me that if I wasn’t happy, I should send it back. Once again, he said that it wasn’t embarrassing; that he was sure lots of brides went through this sort of thing.

(I found out later that he in fact Googled whether I was the only crazy bride running around buying multiple gowns, for the record – I’m not.)

On my third try, I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes. I brought a couple of trusted friends along and we took our time.

After trying a few dresses, I suddenly had that “Oh my God, this is it!” moment. I fell in love with a dress and my friends seconded my emotion. But this time instead of buying on the spot, I walked away (despite incredible pressure from the sales staff).

I woke up still in love with the dress the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

But because I hadn’t bought the dress on the spot, I had a few more options. I ended up finding a lovely woman who makes custom wedding dresses. I reached out to her, sent her some photos of the dress I was so inspired by and mentioned a few alterations I wanted to do to the design. She was incredibly receptive and long story short – I now have the dress of my dreams hanging in my closet.

In retrospect, the story has become funny. I mean really, 3 wedding dresses?! Had my trustworthy instincts let me down during this process? But now I can look back honestly at the whole experience and say that I let the emotion and stress of the wedding influence my decision-making.

I now realize that it wasn’t that my instincts weren’t right; it was that I wouldn’t listen to them. The process of picking out a dress seemed self-indulgent and I had a serious To Do list that required my attention. I ignored my instincts in order to be more efficient.

Brides, consider this a cautionary tale. It is VERY easy to get sucked into To Do lists and other people’s excitement. But build time into your process to take a step back and do a gut check with yourself. No one knows yourself better than you do and it is OK to take time to listen to yourself… and it is OK to return a wedding dress.