David and I had a relatively short engagement of 8 months, especially considering that we were renovating our venue in that timeframe in order to be ready for our wedding. The barn renovation project was so fun, challenging, and consuming that we found ourselves focusing on it more than the details of our wedding itself sometimes. So, here’s where I found myself a few months before our wedding:

The right guy? Check! Easiest choice, ever.

The perfect venue? Check! Even though our renovation wasn’t complete, I had the vision of what it would look like.

An amazing DJ that would keep the party going? Check ! Yes, I locked down my DJ before any other vendor because I’m obsessed with music.

The dress? Absolutely no clue where I should start, what I wanted, how much I wanted to spend, or how on earth I should find “the one.”

I found myself paralyzed with indecision and fear about the entire process (meanwhile time continued to sneak by- funny how that works) so I tried convincing myself that a dress wasn’t that important- surely I could just show up on my biggest day ever in sweatpants and no one would notice, right?

Cue my best friends and bridesmaids. I was hearing it from all angles – Lindsey and Jess who are local managed to ask me about my dress every time we’d get together, Whitney and Kate who are on the other side of the country kept saying super subtle things like “Katie, you really should figure out your own dress before worrying about ours.” And still others who weren’t aware of my mental paralysis would innocently ask “So what does your dress look like?” Finally, Lindsey and Jess got me to commit to just checking out some bridal shops with absolutely no expectations – just to get the process started. We had a gameplan: start out at David’s Bridal where they have all dress sizes and shapes under the sun to get an idea of cut and then go to a boutique bridal shop to try on more unique dresses.

So, we booked our bridal appointments, armed ourselves fully for the day with snacks, water, comfortable shoes (on), and heals (in tow). David’s Bridal was overwhelming but incredibly helpful. There were so.many.dresses. The lady who assisted us was no-nonsense and she took me through the process like a champ. Had me try on all the different dress cuts, get a feel for what I liked, and narrow down what I definitely didn’t like. It was like wedding dresses 101. Just what I needed. That said, I realized there that I really wanted a romantic, flowy, unique, and comfortable dress and I wasn’t quite finding it.

Next up was a boutique bridal shop in DC that had been incredibly helpful during my bridesmaids dress search. We went there and met up with our lovely sales associate and she fully listened when I described what I was looking for in the most abstract terms ever. We walked around the store and pulled approximately 20 dresses down to try on- as we were about to head to the dressing room, my friend Lindsey picked one out and said “what about this one? It looks just like what you’ve been describing.” She was right and we headed back to the dressing room. As a reminder, my intention for the day was to just dip my toes in the water of picking out a dress and end my indecision paralysis. I had zero intentions of falling in love with a dress and finding the one. Well, after trying on all 20 dresses- I ended up with four I really really liked. The shocker? They were ALL the same designer- Modern Trousseau . Ok, so clearly we were on to something. A couple of then were absolutely gorgeous gowns, but were more on the formal side- so after reminding myself what my vision for the day was (romantic, sincere, sentimental- but not too formal) I was able to narrow those out of the running. At that point I was deciding between the romantic (sweetheart Italian lace on top), flowy (individual silk voile panels that all flowed separately on the bottom), unique Fawn gown that Lindsey had picked out and the stunning Honey gown. The Fawn gown made me smile ear-to-ear when trying it on, but I loved the sleeves on the Honey gown. After talking it over with the sales associate, she let me know that Modern Trousseau frequently allows customizing the dress- so we reached a solution- the Fawn gown with added sleeves like the Honey gown. It was match made in wedding dress heaven!