If you’ve been following me since before I got engaged or right when I did, you more than likely know that my wedding dress wasn’t always my wedding dress. That’s right—the stunning Alena Leena ball gown that I wore almost wasn’t, and an entirely different wedding dress almost was. This is that story.

In my experience, when you get engaged, there’s about one night of blissful downtime before the questions start coming at you like attack birds: Have you set a date? Where are you getting married? Have you started looking for a dress? People want info and they want it almost immediately. However, if you’re anything like me, I had never been in the business of dreaming about my wedding day. Therefore, I didn’t have a big plan and I sure as shit didn’t have all the answers to these questions.

As luck would have it, though, I had a pre-planned trip to Chicago right after we got engaged, so my sister and I decided that we’d pay a visit to Anthropologie’s bridal shop, BHLDN, since I was in town anyway. Admittedly, this was probably way too fast of a timeline for me to even be considering a wedding dress, but when in Rome. While at BHLDN, I felt I had found the dress but didn’t bite. I wanted my mom and my best friend to be present in that moment with me, so I returned to Dallas and was delighted to discover that BHLDN was having a pop-up event the following weekend. That meant I could take my mom and bestie to Anthro and watch them fall in love with what I thought was the dress, too! WHAT JOY!

Let me interrupt myself here by saying that wedding dress shopping is equal parts incredibly fun and exciting while being confusing, frustrating, and sometimes totally disheartening. If there were ever a case study on the origin of analysis paralysis, an indecisive bride who has absolutely no idea what kind of gown she might want to wear on her big day would be the perfect subject. Let me also say that, as women, we are programmed to want the moment we find THE dress to be this monumental, unforgettable thing involving our family and best friends. We come by it honestly—when you grow up watching Say Yes To The Dress, you can see no other way to find THE dress than by inviting your mom and sister and bestie and all their opinions along for the ride.

So cut to the Anthropologie dressing rooms last September. I’m there with my mom and one of my best friends, and I am determined to leave the store with my wedding dress. I am hellbent on having that moment with my mom and best friend there, come hell or too high of a neckline. So I try on what I think is the dress that I found at the BHLDN in Chicago, and my mom and friend are feeling pretty muted about it. Then I try on a new-to-me dress and fall in love on the spot. I walk out of the dressing room, and my mom gasps and my best friend cries and I’m beaming and they hand me a faux bouquet to bring it all together and I strut up and down the dressing room hallway and my mom brought bridal jewelry for me to try on with the dress and we all decide THIS IS IT. I don’t cry like I thought I would, but my mom and friend are so sold on it that I am, too.

Now, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: This is a beautiful dress, just not on me. I am in no way damning this dress to hell or claiming it’s an ugly bridal gown. It is gorgeous and would look amazing on the right person, just not MY person. The silhouette, the neckline, the overlay, the everything was NOT for me. But that day, for some reason, I was in love with it. I was sure of it. We left Anthro having ordered my size, and I couldn’t believe I had found THE dress so soon after getting engaged. One major thing down!

The next few weeks trickled along as I waited for my dress to arrive, and we made some more wedding decisions like venue, date, and DJ. The day my dress arrived in the mail to my parent’s house (I had it sent there because I think I was going to be out of town when it got delivered or something), I drove over as soon as I could to try it on and ensure it was the right size. And it was, but I felt… nothing.

Any of the excitement I had felt about the dress just a few weeks prior was gone. I stood there and felt nothing. I didn’t hate it, but I definitely didn’t love it and by no stretch of the imagination did I feel like a beautiful bride in it. But it was bought. It was done. So I blamed it on my PMS and having a bad body image day and not having my hair done or makeup on and tried to forget about the non-feelings it gave me.

I succeeded throughout October and November, but December rolled around and I decided I needed to try the dress on one more time just to be sure it was THE dress, and that’s the try-on that sent me over the edge.

Yes, the lighting is bad and once again, I wasn’t “done up,” but none of that mattered. I looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. I didn’t feel like a bride. Nothing about the dress felt like ME. It accentuated my biggest problem area (my stomach) and de-centuated (I made it up, go with it) one of my best assets (my breasts). I hated the cap sleeve, I hated the fit, I hated all of it. At that point, it was too late to return it but every part of me knew that if I didn’t go look at a few more dress stores, I wouldn’t be able to rest easy. My mom refused to go with me because I had aggravated her so much with my vacillating, and I used that as a jumping off point to not invite anyone with me. If I was going to change my mind and find a new dress, I didn’t want anyone around. It had to be my decision with no outside influences.

I got an appointment the very next day at a local bridal shop in Dallas, chose about five dresses to test out, and the first one I put on was it.

It was just me and the sales associate, and I cried. Hard. I stepped out of the dressing room and in front of the mirror and actually gasped. The tears were involuntary. I took my own breath away, for Christ's sake. This is how I always wanted to look and feel on my wedding day. Up until this moment, I hadn’t tried on even ONE ball gown style wedding dress because I felt that wasn’t me and was too over the top. Boy, was I wrong. For good measure, I tried on the other dresses I had picked out from that shop and went to ANOTHER store the next day to try on their selection, too. I had already made a rushed decision once; even though I felt so sure about this second dress, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

As luck would have it, my sister happened to be coming in town the last week of December, so I had her and my mom come back to this shop with me to see the second dress in person. I knew that no matter what they said or how they reacted to it, it was the dress and no one could convince me otherwise. When I stepped out, my sister gasped and my mom cried (she hadn’t cried on dress number one), and I knew I was done. Because my mom had so graciously bought the first dress for me, I bought the second one on my own then attempted to resell the original dress online. It didn’t go well, but I was ultimately able to find a wedding dress resale site called Stillwhite and sold it to a bride-to-be for half the cost.

Then, on October 15, I put on my wedding dress, felt like a million bucks, and had the time of my life.

The moral of the story? Try on all the dresses at all the stores before making your decision and, if you can, make it alone. After all, it’s all about you and what you want and feel best in. Go with your gut, choose a dress that makes you cry, and be exactly who you want to be on your big day.

First dress by BHLDN

Second dress by Alena Leena

All pictures by Wilderlove Co.