TWIRL BRIDE BLOGGER || EMILY RHOADS - FROM TWIRL GIRL TO TWIRL BRIDE
Friends! We are so excited about this post from Emily today!! It's such a tricky situation when you have worked in the bridal world before you're a bride-to-be yourself. You either know EXACTLY what you want or you have completely no idea. Today Emily is going to take you all through the process she went through as she finally went from being a Twirl Girl to Twirl Bride!! Enjoy!
“How on earth did you pick your dress?!”
“I bet you already knew exactly what you wanted since you see dresses all the time.”
These are two sentences I hear almost everyday while I’m chatting with brides during their appointment. Both are somewhat of true, but picking out my gown was one of the hardest and the easiest decision I have had to make. I’ve been around these dresses for years and have tried on SO many for fun and styled shoots that I have lost track. This helped me learn over time what styles looked best on my body type. I guess you could say this gave me a leg up on this wedding dress shopping thing. But the bad thing about seeing so many dresses is that I get to see SO MANY BEAUTIFUL dresses. Every dress at the store may not be exactly what I wanted for my gown but there is detail in every dress that I adore. So how did I narrow down the selection of 175 dresses down to just one?
I decided to approach picking my dress like every other bride with a real appointment surrounded by the people I love and opinions that matter most to me. I scheduled my appointment about eight months before our wedding date to insure that it would come in time for alterations (We are not lying when we tell ya that those babies take four to five months to come in!). I came with my mom, sister (a Meant To Be Bride), sister-in-law (a Twirl Bride), mema, and best friend. I knew their opinions mattered to me the most and if I had too many I would never be able to decide for myself. Ty and Liz were there of course, as well as many of the other gals from Twirl. All in all, there were a lot of eyes on me waiting for me to decide. It was a little overwhelming for this gal who doesn’t love being in the lime light. If you’re like me and don’t love being the center of attention, then I recommend taking a moment for yourself in the fitting room. Make sure you have your opinion figured out about the dress before you show your group; I know how easily I can be swayed by the opinions of the ones I love. I had Ty helping me in the fitting room and I remember telling her which ones I liked, which ones I didn’t see as my dress and the one that I loved, having her on my side when I went out to show my family made me feel more confident that if I couldn’t voice my opinion about the dress clearly to my group that I had someone else there who could.
Now how did I know when I found THE dress? Like I said earlier they are all beautiful dresses, but I knew coming in some of the details I wanted and features of mine I wanted to highlight and which ones didn’t need to be the star of the show that day. I love my shoulders and collar bones (is that weird?) so I wanted to make sure my dress highlighted that so I knew strapless, off-the-shoulder, or thin straps were the types of necklines I wanted to try on. I’m also really tall and my fiancé is really tall, so I wanted my dress to flatter my length rather than weigh me down. I love lace and simple classic materials so I made sure my selections had at least one of those fabrics. From there I was able to gather a good selection of dresses to try on, I narrowed it down enough to make it manageable but I also left some room to be open minded and try things I wouldn’t necessarily have picked out for myself. I tried on 7, maybe 8, dresses when I put on the one I knew I wanted to get married in. It had those detail elements that I wanted but didn’t match anything perfectly on my Pinterest board. I was surprised by how much I loved it! I had “the moment” when I could see Austin waiting for me at the end of the aisle and I would be wearing that exact dress. Everyone experiences that moment differently, for some it's tears of joy, giddy laughter, screaming and clapping with excitement, or its just a sense of peace that it’s the right one for you.
My beautiful dress is now at the seamstress to be taken in here and there, to have pieces sewn on, and maybe a few buttons moved. That’s right, not even a bridal consultant’s dress fits perfectly right out of the UPS box. But that means I will have a one of a kind dress that will fit no one else but me, it will be one of its kind!
PS- I got to meet the designer of my dress a couple of years ago during a trunk show! Those are the only facts you get for now. ;)
Y'all, having one of our very own become one of our brides is truly the sweetest!! We can't wait for you all to see Em in her GORGEOUS wedding dress! It's unlike anything she's worn before and it is so perfectly "Em". We love you, Emily!!
Thank you for sharing this fun part of your wedding planning journey with us. Xoxo!
