So Mom and I went shopping at David's Bridal on Tuesday to check out the different dress styles that looked good on me and to get a feel for what kind of a dress I was looking for. The first dress I tried on was beautiful. Absolutely could have been totally happy with it for the wedding. It was this giant poofy cinderella ballroom perfection of a dress with a bodice covered in sparkles. (And I do mean COVERED!) It was ridiculous, but it very much fit "me". So after taking some photos and enjoying its enormousness, the snow beast came off and the next dress went on. Completely different in every way and just as perfect. My mom and I knew we were in trouble at this point! It was extremely intricately beaded and sparkled and detailed with a beautiful chapel train. After looking at this one for another ten minutes or so, we moved on to the next style. That one failed immediately. It was funny. I walked out of the dressing room carrying the front, stood up on the podium in front of all the mirrors, let the bottom fall to take a look at it, and nixed it. Mom and I almost simultaneously said "nu-uh". It was great. We laughed a bit. The next few dresses were pretty, but just not the right dress. The next memorable one was a slinky sexy number that had a beautiful rucheting gathering the fabric to the side at my hip. It was a beautiful dress, I just thought that it looked like someone had made the dress too big and just pulled it all over and pinned it. Not for me. So by the time the store is almost closing, I have 4 dresses that I love. I could have been happy with any of them. One of the other brides that was trying on dresses told me that I would like a few of them, but when you put on the dress you're going to wear down the aisle, you just know it. So the last dress I tried on that day is the most beautiful dress I've ever seen. I can't go into details about it (because Nick reads this too), but you'll see it at the wedding! They added on the tiara and veil so I could see how I liked it and I was so in love with it. I knew it was mine. So excited!!
So Wednesday, I finally got to take Nick over to see the two locations that I liked best. One was a grand lobby with a three-story spiral staircase. It was one of those places that is just so perfectly designed for wedding photos. There were a few problems that would need to be worked out with this location, one of them being that we couldn't even book it until they found out their schedule for the theatre -- which wouldn't allow us to even know the dates available until after April... Yeah. We didn't really want to wait that long to let everyone know when they were going to need to be available. Also, Nickos really didn't like needing to wait that long to find out if it would even be available to rent. Off to the next place: Lakewood Country Club. This is a golf course right near my parents' house. There's a huge lawn area out in front of everything that would be where the ceremony would take place. When you first walk inside the building, it feels a little small, but in a quaint kind of way. There's a bride's room upstairs for all the girls to get ready that day. The reception room is a good size location. It has room for about 200 guests and included the dance floor and a bunch of other details that the other location didn't. There's a lake in the golf course that we can take a few pictures at and there's plenty of outside areas and beautiful scenery for photos. Nickos and I met with the catering director, went over everything, got all our questions answered and left. I'm thinking we're done for the day, we'll talk about it and book it later if we decide we like it. Well, instead we talked about it then, called my mom who offered to call the director and make the down payment, and we booked it. Yay!! So everything is official and we've got the location and date: Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at the Lakewood Country Club!
We're so excited and can't wait for this wonderful occasion to celebrate our love with all of you! Save the date announcements will be coming soon!
Love always,
Nick and Nikki
