Wedding Dress Shopping: The Odyssey Begins

So this weekend I decided to start the process of finding a wedding dress.

Oh, I'm kidding, it wasn't quite that bad.  I did something a little wacky, though: I brought Mr. C-Ville along with me.  Yes, the groom is going to help me pick out a wedding dress.  It's a family tradition, but to be totally honest, I thought I was going to get kicked out of the dress shops. "You can't bring your groom with you!"  But the guy has taste, he knows dresses, and it's his day too, so why the heck not?

We were in New York, so first we hit the famous (or infamous) Kleinfeld's.

(photo credit: weddingwhirlwind.wordpress.com)

Of course you can't take pictures at Kleinfeld--the whole experience is designed to be as intimidating and overwhelming as possible.  They make you wait in a fancy waiting room in the lobby until your consultant is ready for you.  Then they lead you through an enormous room full of over-the top dresses and cooing brides trying on their veils till you get to the dressing room area, which is hallways filled with doors labeled with consultants' names.  (Are you getting an Alice in Wonderland feel yet?)  The consultant asks you some questions about your wedding and then sends you off to the storeroom for you to pick dresses.  All of the dresses we found in the storeroom were fugly.  I mean really, really, really ugly dresses.  We picked a couple and met our consultant back at the dressing rooms, and she had much prettier dresses than the ones I found.  How did she do that?  It must have been to increase the drama of "finding the right dress."  She insisted I take off my bra, handed me a corset, squished and poked me to get me into it properly, and we were ready to begin.

The result?  Eh.  I'd asked for a certain budget range and for some reason the consultant brought me dresses that she thought were "more reasonably priced." Maybe I looked cheap or something, I don't know.  In real life you can find clothes that look more expensive than they actually are, but certainly not at Kleinfeld's.  Even the "more reasonable dresses"--that were still really freaking expensive!--were kind of cheap and bedraggled looking.  You can tell that a lot of brides-to-be have squeezed themselves into those samples. 

(photo credit www.2bebride.com)

Here's one I tried on.  It looks pretty in the picture, and it looked ok on me, but the material really wasn't very nice at all.  Kind of scratchy.  

After that we went to a place in the Meatpacking District, Gabriella New York.  I wanted to go there because I like Amy Kuschel's gowns, even though I didn't actually end up trying on any.  But Gabriella was fun to go to because it's in a former warehouse with a service elevator (which is a little bit tricky to operate), and the space is very airy and loftlike.

The nice folks at Gabriella are crazy good salespeople.  They were so good about listening to what I wanted and found gowns that were well suited to what I imagine myself wearing on my wedding day.  The only problem is: they are really honking expensive.  They wanted me to try on this spectacular gown (sorry, I wish I had pictures, but they don't let you take any) which was an exquisite crochet fabric over silk.  When I tried it on, it was the moment!  I thought to myself, "this is my dress."  Then they told me the price and I almost fainted.  We might be able to fit it into our budget, though, if we give up things like food and a band and maybe the rabbi.

(photo credit www.matthewchristopher.com)

This is currently the second place dress, although I'm a little worried that the beading might be too much for a garden wedding.  What do ya'll think?

So now what?  Should I head to some more salons?  David's Bridal?  Should I have my dress made?  And how do you pick a dressmaker?  How did you kick off your wedding gown shopping?