Southern Living

After months and months of scouring Trulia, FMRealty, and Zillow; debating endlessly about where, exactly, in the Triangle we might want to live; and going back and forth on our goals and how much money we want to spend, we have finally found a home that we both like. Like, really like. Maybe love. I am trying to not be under any illusions that this particular house might actually become ours (we haven’t even seen the inside!), but it’s enough to make the whole mortgage and home buying process much more real. We already have a realtor in mind; we’re knee-deep in wading through the sites of different mortgage lenders, and have reached out to a few options. It’s exciting, but also completely nerve-wracking!

Here’s what I would like to know: For those of you who have already gone through the home buying process, what is the ONE piece of advice you’d like to impart at this stage of the game? (If you have more than one piece of advice, I’d love to hear it, but I don’t want to tax you!) It can be super simple and easy, or something very specific and involved. What one thing do you wish you had known at this point in the process? We’re all ears!!

Of all the options out there for decorating with pumpkins, adding gold accents is my top pick. Five of my favorite examples:

Top to bottom: Country Living | Martha Stewart | Martha Stewart | Twig & Thistle | Martha Stewart

I particularly love when they’re mixed with cream and natural pumpkins — gives a little earthiness to this glam look! If you’re interested in trying this (I am!), I think the key is to get a darker, more yellow gold than white gold spray paint. I found some tips for gilding here, too, if you choose to go that route!

Have you picked out/embellished pumpkins this year? We’re hoping to get ours this weekend — since we don’t carve, they might last through Thanksgiving!

On Wednesday we visited David’s Bridal, but let’s back up a bit, to my trip to Nitsa’s in Winston-Salem. After my first two boutique visits, I had probably tried on twenty dresses, but I still hadn’t tried on a single gown by my favorite designer, Christos. And the only location in North Carolina that carries Christos gowns? Nitsa’s. So to Nitsa’s we went. Buckle up, this is a long one!

Our appointment was on a Friday, and my mom and I were the only customers in the bridal area for the duration of our visit. On our first and second visits, we met with Chris, whom I liked very much, and on our third visit, we met with Erin (whom I also liked). Chris and I had talked on the phone in advance of the appointment, so she knew I was interested in the Brisa and the Maribel of the dresses they carry from Christos. Nitsa’s also carries Vera Wang, Monique Lhuillier, Amsale, Pronovias, and Kenneth Pool, among others, and I tried on dresses from some of those designers, as well.

The first gown I tried on was actually Brisa! Chris asked me which one I wanted to try first from the ones we had pulled, and hilariously I chose that one, because I thought it would be my least favorite. I obviously quite liked it as soon as I had it on, but there was no immediate visceral or emotional reaction. I moved on to other dresses, but unfortunately I can’t remember most of them because Nitsa’s does not allow photographs until you have purchased a gown. (That was one of my least favorite parts of the experience — I found it unnecessarily annoying.) I do remember trying on one other gown, though, and that is Maribel.

Ahh Maribel. Before I was engaged, she was my most favorite of all gowns. I LOVED her swiss dots, and thought her silhouette was so sweet. Lots of people were positive I would wear a swiss dot gown, myself among them. On that day, however, I put on Maribel, stood up in front of the mirror, and immediately had one of the only visceral reactions of my dress shopping experience — a negative one. I immediately wanted to take the gown off.

It was so weird! I can’t really describe it, either. The overwhelming feeling was just that this dress was not me. The only reason I can think of for this is that in recent years Maribel has become quite a popular gown (probably the most well-known of all Christos’ designs), and I had simply seen it too many times on other brides. I don’t know. It was weird.

After I had tried on all the dresses we pulled (about eight), I put Brisa back on. I stayed in it for quite a while, and my overwhelming feeling was that yes, this one feels like me. This one feels right. We felt good enough to have Nitsa’s take my measurements, but didn’t feel ready to submit the order quite yet. (Thr price was more than I was expecting to spend, and we still wanted to visit Bridal Mart and David’s Bridal.)

We made our additional visits, spent a few days wrestling with the pricing/alteration issues I laid out in this post, and finally felt ready to pull the trigger. My last decision was to choose between Christos’ two shades — white or off white. Thankfully, Christos’ white is soft and beautiful, and that’s the one I went with. Nitsa’s sent me white tulle and satin samples to help me decide; having previously seen and loved my friend Katharine’s white Amsale gown helped, too. (Amsale and Christos are both designed by Amsale Aberra, and share many fabrics.)

We placed the order in mid-November, and in mid-April, we got the call that Brisa had arrived in North Carolina! My mom was conveniently visiting on her spring break, and so she and I were able to attend the first fitting together. Thankfully, my gown fit as well as I could have hoped for — they didn’t need to adjust a stitch on the bodice. They did end up sewing in cups (of course), and the hem needed to be raised and a bustle put in.

For those who are wondering, the seamstress tried the bustle two ways. The first way I didn’t care for — it was tucked up too high — but the second way I quite liked. The initial bustle they put in was 15 points, but we talked them down to 13 for a slight break on the price :) The layers of tulle in the skirt made so many points necessary.

At the first fitting, they pinned the hem and bustle (all of these photos are from the first fitting). At the second fitting, a few weeks before our wedding, the cups had been sewn in, the hem had been basted, the bustle was sewn in, and the satin underlayer had been cut. I still felt the pinned hem was too long at the second fitting, so they raised it again. I stayed in my dress for at least twenty minutes, moving around, trying out some dance steps, etc. I think they might have been starting to get antsy (oops), but it was extremely important to me that I not be stepping on my hem all night.

Some of you had asked about the shipping process, so here’s the scoop! Nitsa’s agreed to ship my dress north post-alterations so I wouldn’t have to stuff it into the car. Interestingly, since they shipped it to Connecticut, we didn’t have to pay sales tax (???). However, we did pay for shipping, so I think the savings might have been about $100 in the end. The dress arrived in great shape, and didn’t even need to be pressed upon arrival!

The last thing I want to say is this: It’s okay if you never have a “moment” with your dress. Neither my mom nor I cried at any of our three visits to Nitsa’s (and my mom cries at the drop of a hat). I never second guessed my decision or eyed another gown, but I did acknowledge that there were other dresses out there that I probably could have been equally as happy with. However, that didn’t diminish the fact that I loved my gown and felt completely beautiful on our wedding day. And, I must say, Brisa was very popular with our wedding guests — people asked to touch the skirt all night long! :)

P.S. I will be selling my beloved gown at some point, so if you’re interested, stay tuned for more info!

After yesterday’s slightly pitiful post, I’m happy to move on to cheerier days. We tabled the dress shopping for about two months, and my (wonderful, awesome, hugely-accommodating) mom made plans to come down to North Carolina in November. We made the most of her extended weekend, and fit in visits to three different dress shops. Our first one was actually to Nitsa’s, where I would eventually buy my dress, but I’m going to shake things up and post about our third store of the weekend, David’s Bridal, first.

(The second store doesn’t really need a post of its own – we went to Bridal Mart in Burlington hoping to try on a few specific Watters gowns, but all the designers were totally mixed up on the racks, so we couldn’t find what we were looking for.)

David’s Bridal, of course, needs no introduction. I’ve actually loved a lot of what they’ve done recently, especially the White by Vera Wang Collection, so I can honestly say I went in with an open mind. I also went in with fairly low expectations, which I think was helpful. There was one specific dress I was hoping to try on, and happily, they had it in stock! Here it is being sported by another real bride:

Photos by The Collective Photographers via Style Me Pretty

I did try this one on (it’s by Oleg Cassini), and I liked it quite a bit! I’m actually surprised I can’t find it on their website anymore, because I thought it was one of the loveliest designs they offered. Here it is on me:

I tried on a few other dresses, including this one and this one, but the Oleg Cassini was the only one we were seriously considering. And we were seriously considering it.

For one, it was about half the price of the “Brisa,” if I’m remembering correctly. It also shared many characteristics with Miss B, like a soft, full skirt, a draped top, a sweetheart neckline, and a natural waist.

Of course, there were some issues. David’s Bridal designs come in two shades: white and off white. I knew I didn’t want the off white (way too yellow for me), but the white was that stark BRIDAL WHITE, which I also didn’t care for. Left with no middle ground, I didn’t like my options.

Also, I would have liked to make some significant alterations to the Oleg Cassini to make it a better fit for my style — I wanted to remove some of the ornamentation around the waist, and add illusion sleeves. With the additional expense of those alterations, the price gap between the two would have narrowed.

In addition, I knew that if I bought the Christos gown (or any designer gown, really) I would need to sell it after my wedding to be able to match my dress budget, and I was okay with that. Though the DB gown was less money initially, it would have been harder to resell it, especially if I had made significant alterations.

As strange as it sounds, the final nail in the coffin for David’s Bridal was the service/environment. For whatever reason, my mom did not care for the gal helping us, and I think she was very turned off by the whole environment of the store — we had to wait at several different points throughout our stay, the lighting was weird, the attitude was more “sales-y” than at the boutiques we had visited, etc. These things didn’t bother me quite as much because, like I said above, I came in with lower expectations.

I think my mom’s biggest concern, though, was that she felt I was settling for the David’s Bridal gown, and because she is wonderful and amazing, she didn’t want me to do that. Love her.

Tomorrow, I will conclude our dress hunt saga with my experience at Nitsa’s, from first visit to gown shipping!

Tell me: Did you visit David’s Bridal in your search for a wedding gown? What did you think?