It's all about the dress

Three bridal salons in one day almost did me in. And I wasn't even the one trying on the dresses.

Thursday's marathon left my mind numb and my eyes glazed over by the time we hit the the third place. Kate held up very well, however, which is all that matters I guess. We saw lots and lots of gorgeous dresses - organzas, laces, and other fluffy and not-so-fluffy stuff. Kate looked good in most all of them.

I think she tried on more dresses at the third stop - Priscilla of Boston - than the other two. Still, the advantage goes to our first stop, Anne Barge Atelier. All the other dresses were judged by the two favorites found there early on, and only one other dress entered the running once we left Anne's place.

This dress thing is an interesting business, but with the amount of money involved, I guess it would have to be. The bride-to-be is waited on hand and foot by her sales assistant (though I'm sure they have a fancier title than that). Like anything, if a connection is made early on with the sales assistant, it makes a difference to the whole experience. We just didn't click with the sales woman at the second location, which colored the way we saw the dresses in her shop. We did like one dress there, but her attitude nixed it, in the end.

Am I going to show you pictures of the top two contenders? No way. But you can see how cute Kate looked after trying on the dresses in the Anne Barge salon! I'll write more on the dress (and veil!) experience over the next few days, because one blog-post is not enough to cover it. But for now, I need to get some perspective on the process and options, as well as recover from the snow-blindness brought on by a world of white, pearl, and champagne dresses. Oh, yeah. And sticker-shock.