Whatcha Talkin' About, David?

(source)

I may have mentioned that I did not like dress shopping very much, but I felt like one of the easier places to go shopping in the early stages was to David's as the store carries a lot of styles and silhouettes in a price range I knew I could afford on the spot. At the end of my initial experience, I felt like Arnold from "Different Strokes" mumbling under my breath "Whatcha talkin' about, David?" as I tried on some of these dresses (by the way, who's David?). I felt like David was trying to straight up play me with the some of these dresses. I came to find out over the course of time that I really wasn't into most wedding dresses AT ALL. Looking back at the process now, I will say that I did like having a range of styles to try on at first especially since me and my picky self had some criteria for the dress ( Y'all know I'm gonna write a list, so sit back and enjoy :) ) :

1) Chill with the beading. I know a lot of ladies like the beading, but it just didn't appeal to me.

2) Keep it light. I did not want to feel like I was carrying the weight of a small child on me all day.

3) Find a way to get away from wearing a strapless dress ( 'cause someone done wrote a memo to the bridal industry that that's what brides [want to] wear these days.)

4) Did I mention beading?

Anyway, here are some of the dresses that I tried on at first that did not make the cut.

This dress wasn't so bad...

BUT it had this!!!!

In my mind I was channelling Faye Dunaway in "Mommy Dearest" - NO. BEADING. EVER!!! In my very early dress shopping stages, I was completely and adamantly opposed to beading. Ofcourse, how I did rectify that? I bought a dress with some beading. Sigh...


Then my very sweet consultant put a veil and a tiara on me. Wrong move...I'm still trying to figure out if I want a veil right now.

I look pretty happy here, don't I?

The next dress had more of a "Va Va Voom" quality to it. This dress was the beginning of my love affair with mermaid style dresses. I always envisioned this kind of dress, since I figured I should try to show a curve or two.

I was kinda into this dress, but my (ahem!) Bonita Applebum was kinda sticking out there. That the dress was tight (not "tight" as in "good" or "cool" but as in actually tight!) is an understatement.

Alas, this dress looked as if the Bead Fairy had had its way with it too, so I moved on.

This dress was the type of dress I thought I wanted before I started shopping. Something light, airy and simple.

However, I didn't think this dress was really doing anything for me.

So there's a sample of some of the types of dresses that I tried on during my first trip shopping. I think I got a quick sense of what I liked and what I didn't, and it guided me well through the rest of the process.

How was your first trip wedding dress shopping? Did you realize what you were looking for in a dress pretty early?