Early this month we set out in search of THE dress for the wedding. Beth had set up 3 appointments for the weekend and we set off to beautiful South Pasadena on Saturday morning to shop. The first store, The Ivory Suite, we went to had several options to choose from which would all work with the theme of the wedding and all looked great on the Bride. This store was quaint and personal. Both the owners were there for our meeting and they could not have been nicer. I was a little surprised that we weren’t more emotional about the process. I had personally envisioned a few tears or something but while my sister looked great in all the dresses I don’t think any of us were overcome with emotion. There was one dress in particular that Alyssa really loved, and my mom and I loved it on her, but we all agreed that she couldn’t make such a big decision without even exploring our options a little further.

After our appointment at the Ivory Suite, we walked around South Pas for a bit and then drove 10 minutes to downtown Pasadena were the second shop was located. The second was completely different than the first place…it was crowded and there were tons of huge ballgown-style dresses with long trains and glitzy sparkles. While most were admittedly quite beautiful, this is not at all my sister’s vision of a dress. I was fairly certain we were not going to find what we were looking for here.

Apparently, our mom didn’t either. (Actually, she was annoyed at us for ganging up on her about her driving skills! ha!) Alyssa introduced herself to our saleswoman, Nora, who was so nice. She immediately started pulling dresses that we were picking out and we ended up with about 10 dresses in various styles for my sis to try. Alyssa had actually seen a dress she loved in a magazine and told Nora about it. As it turned out they had the dress and one that was close but just a little different than the dress in the magazine. It was admittedly just a little bit out of her budget but when she tried it on I think we all knew that this was “The One.” My mom even got teary eyed when she tried it on. The dress was more than we wanted to spend, but it was gorgeous. We agreed to go to lunch and talk it over. After much discussion (and an offer of complementary alterations from the dress shop) Alyssa came to the conclusion that this dress was, in fact, the dress she would wear at her wedding.
I for one was really excited that my sister chose this dress, and I know my mom loved it. It definitely has the “wow factor” and sister just felt really beautiful in it. We were all glad to cross such a major task off our list and could now spend the rest of the month Christmas shopping, instead of dress shopping!