Wedding Dress Shopping

“Selecting a wedding dress is more that just a fitting…
it’s a process – a memory in the making.”
Olivelli Cape Town

Saturday was an exciting day for me! My best friend, Angela, is getting married and we went wedding dress shopping.  We started the morning off early, which seems to be a trend whenever the word wedding is involved in my life. A 5 am wake up is becoming my normal, but Saturday’s adventure was well worth the early rising.  In fact, I think I woke up every half hour in anticipation of the fun. We all met up at Angela’s at 7:30 am, ate a light breakfast and drove to San Francisco.

Our shopping party consisted of the bride Angela, sister of the bride Amy, two best friends Heather and myself and her stepmother Denise. Angela, Amy, Heather and I have spent a lot of time together throughout the years. Heather and I have known each other since I was in second grade, we were cheerleaders in high school together and Ethereal Beauty Elite Artistry was her hair and makeup team for her wedding last September. Angela and I met about 15 years ago, we became really close and realized we had Heather as a mutual friend. Amy was still in high school when Angela and I became friends, so I did her makeup for prom and other special events as she grew up. We have had countless adventures together, so many great memories and a lot of nights that none of us completely remember. Angela was my maid of honor when I got married and was with me when I found my wedding dress. Needless to say these women are special to me and friend just isn’t an accurate term. They are family!

We arrived early to our first appointment at Novella Bridal in San Francisco.  Angela is a planner and had been searching Pinterest for dress ideas. As we met with our consultant Angela was prepared with photos of two dream dresses. She researched where to buy these dresses and they are only available in Australia. However, we were all hopeful that she could find something similar. Unfortunately, they did not have many options for this particular dress style. I took photos of each dress as she tried it on and we even made photo collages for easy comparisons. Ange tried on beautiful gowns and looked amazing in everything, but we just could not “the one.” We went to a wedding dress store down the street that sold sample dresses and once again found beautiful designer gowns, but nothing as unique or special as our bride.

We left the city and headed to Tiburon for lunch at Sam’s Anchor Café. We sat on the back patio, shared appetizers, drank cocktails and discussed all of our upcoming plans.  Ange is getting married in Cabo San Jose, Mexico. We will be enjoying four days in Mexico while celebrating the bride and groom. It will be an intimate wedding with the closest of family and friends. Amy, Heather and I will be the attendants and I will be doing the makeup. Angela and I have discussed her wedding makeup throughout the years. I’m very excited to be in the wedding as well as doing the makeup. We talked a little about wedding makeup during our lunch, but we all agreed that the dress would determine the details of the makeup.

After lunch we headed North to our next appointment at Wine Country Bride.  We arrived early so we opened up a bottle of champagne and made a toast to the bride. We took a few minutes to discuss dress options and we set off for our appointment. I bought my dress in 2009 from this store and was pleasantly surprised by all the upgrades. Our consultant was professional, knowledgeable and very sweet. After scouring the dresses we all looked at Heather with concern. She had been battling an illness for the last couple of days and she was getting paler by the minute. She agreed to head home and we would stay in contact with her in case we found the perfect gown. Angela tried on about twelve dresses, but we still did not find her dress. She is going to research the Australian gowns further to see about ordering them. Amy ordered an uber ride home, which was my first time experiencing this transportation. I was probably overly excited about my first uber ride, but as it turned out we were the first pick up in our driver’s new career. We were both excited!

Angela did not say yes to a dress. But we all had an exceptionally fun day planning for the different bridal activities, talking about the wedding and reminiscing about the past. After dress shopping we met up with Angela’s dad, her fiance and Amy’s boyfriend for a drink at Grav South Brew Co and shared more laughs before heading home. The best part of these traditions isn’t always reaching the objective of finding the dress. The best part is creating new memories with people you love!

“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who LOVE YOU no matter what.”