The Dress

I have a confession to make: I am one of those little girls who has dreamed about her wedding since she was a little girl. When Wade surprised me with my dream proposal (and, even more surprisingly, my dream ring), I immediately began envisioning exactly what our wedding would look like. I have always loved the book The Great Gatsby since being introduced to it in eleventh grade at school, and with the release of the Baz Luhrmann remake, 1920s Gatsby weddings are a huge trend for this year. All it took was for me to see this inspiration board, and I was hooked. I mean, aren't those Miu Miu heels divine?

Source: onewed

So I could picture the style of wedding that I wanted - classic with a little bit of bling - but I couldn't picture my dress in my head. I wanted the dress to tie into the theme and work with the bridesmaid's dresses, but also to be completely flattering on me and look amazing. I don't ask for much, do I? My bridesmaid's dresses were almost a no-brainer. I logged on to Facebook one morning, and they popped up immediately in my news feed as a post from one of my favorite fashion outlets, Forever New. I texted my girls straight away, asking them to go and try on the dress in their size, and, amazingly enough, they all fit! And they fit in with the colour scheme (soft pink, silver and champagne).

Source: Forever New

Like all other brides, I started trawling Pinterest, looking for my dream dress. I knew wanted something with beading, and something lightweight - we are, after all, getting married two weeks before Summer. Then I went on a few shopping excursions with my mom and my bridesmaids and learned very quickly that the styles that looked amazing on size four models did not look as amazing on size ten girls with curves. Sheath dresses were out, along with most figure-hugging styles. To my surprise, what I did like were empire waist bodices with tulle skirts - in short, princess dresses. This surprised me a lot. I had never really considered myself a princess dress kind of bride. But there I was, standing in these gorgeous dresses, and, even more surprising, I felt like I could breathe. Tulle, as it turns out, is very lightweight. Finally I felt could twirl around in those dresses, eat a four course dinner and pose for hundreds of photos and not feel exhausted. So I had the style narrowed down, but not the dress.

I started contemplating buying a cheaper dress and hand-beading it. I do work in a craft store, after all! But the thought of buying hundreds of Swarovski crystals and stitching each individual bead to the bodice simply gave me a headache. And then I found the dress. It was sitting in the window of a Brisbane fashion designer's shop and - there's no other way to say this - sparkling at me. It was from the designer's Gatsby range. It was tulle. It was beaded. It was perfect. As soon as I tried it on, I had the dress moment. As soon as the shop assistant zipped me up, I started beaming like I hadn't with any other dress. I wanted to run around the shop in it, and twirl until I was so dizzy that I fell over. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that is honestly how I felt with I saw myself standing in that dress.

I can't wait to wear it! I honestly can not wait.

- H