Say Yes (Maybe) to The Dress

I have a feeling my brother’s upcoming wedding is going to be a lot of firsts for me.

The first time I’ve been with the guy as he purchased the ring…. the first time I’ve seen anyone propose…. the first time I was asked to be a bridesmaid…

And this morning was the first time I’ve ever been dress shopping with a bride!

The closest I’ve ever come to bridal dress shopping in the past has been watching marathons of ‘Say Yes to the Dress,’ so I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect. Every little girl dreams of what their future dress will be and everyone’s dreams are so different! Ashley has been a very laid back bride and every dress looked GORGEOUS on her. The whole adventure was exciting, fun, and one big learning experience for future trips.

The plan was to meet at Ashley parents’ place at 10:30 this morning. Since Josh’s girlfriend Adena came in town late last night – after spending the holidays in Hawaii (JEALOUS!) – I opted to head to Titusville early and have breakfast at my parents to play catch up with everyone.

Dad made a beautiful spread of everyone’s favorites including homemade, straight from the oven biscuits.

I went a little crazy piling my plate high with a little bit of everything.

Eggs, potatoes, bacon, fried apples, and a biscuit with homemade grape jelly.

Definitely worth the early morning drive.

Ashely played it smart and had read reviews of local bridal shops via google the night before. She had found one shop with 100% positive reviews and we took a chance by showing up appointment free.

Luckily, they had an appointment open and were happy to show us around. Ashley showed the consultant some samples of what she liked and a sense of budget. From there the consultant pulled some samples of what she thought Ashley would like and gave us free reign of the store to see if there was anything we liked.

I liked how the wedding dresses were labeled with cutouts of what the dresses look like on models. It’s near impossible to decide if you like a dress or not based on what it looks like on the hanger.

Ashley tried on at least a dozen dresses. This was her first dress outing, so the goal was to simply get a feel for what style and cut she was looking for.

We didn’t walk away with any dresses, but there was one particular dress that we all fell in love with. I believe it’s in the back of all our minds marinating as a real contender, but there’s still plenty of time to see what else is out there.

Several hours of dress shopping later (time flies when you’re having fun) Sherry offered to treat us all to lunch at Tijuana Flats. (THANKS SHERRY!!)

I ordered the dos bean tacos with the works.

One hard and one soft just to mix it up a little bit.

When I got home I had a juicy orange.

TIme to get all snazzy…. It’s New Years Eve and I’ve have a party to get to!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!