Wedding dress shopping is such a surreal thing. You have one hour to try on as many dresses as you can in an entire store filled with the most gorgeous gowns you have ever laid your eyes on and then hopefully, maybe fall in love with one. Overwhelming is an understatement here. But about a month ago I did just that. I found the one and I love it to the moon and my sister loves it, and my mom– well, if wiping tears from your eyes means anything (which I like to believe it does), then we got it right! We found a winner!
We took one weekend and went to 3 places. This worked for me, and I’m grateful– but it’s a lot of brain work trying on those dresses! On Friday we visited Anthropologie in Chestnut Hill where they actually have an entire section of the store dedicated to the BHLDN line. You must make an appointment online and when you do so you mention the names of the dresses you’d like to try on during your time there. I requested quite a few, but some of my favorites were The Persiphone Gown, The Penelope Gown, and The Daphne Dress. {Also, now that I’m browsing the website the Lucca Maxi is INCREDIBLE, but I don’t think this was one of the choices at the time of my appointment.} Looking at them again I’m completely googly eyed, but my thoughts on the dresses in person were actually quite different. I didn’t love them! THE TRAGEDY! I wanted to love them because Anthropologie is the definition of my LOVE LANGUAGE, but I just didn’t. I couldn’t! Try as I might I didn’t feel any feelings and this honestly made me quite sad.
And also a little bit nervous, too. WOULD I FIND A DRESS TO LOVE?
I want to be sure to mention that my experience at BHLDN was wonderful. We were helped by the nicest people {thanks, Olivia!} and everyone was so kind– the nicest. And! We were served champagne! How it should be, you know? I would definitely recommend it to others looking to find a dress. The bridal shop is gorgeous and their dresses are lovely– it just turned out there wasn’t one for me!
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The next morning I got up feeling good and ready to take on the day. Since my mom came for the weekend we spent the morning dreaming up a few wedding details and then we ventured to Beacon Hill. Ceremony is a little boutique tucked away on River Street and it’s interior is just divine. My heart felt a flutter a soon as we arrived and looking back it seems perfect that I found my dress here. Alix, the owner, opened the shop up in 2013 and her style on all things, especially Bridal things, is just exactly right.
{That’s Maura up in that photo. She works at Ceremony and helped me at my appointment that day. Thank you, Maura! Another lovely bridal boutique soul. God bless them all.}
Ceremony is everything a bridal shop should be and more. It is light and bright and filled with the most gorgeous dresses you could ever dream up. Perfectly simple, perfectly pretty. Appointments are one hour and for that time you literally have the entire loft to yourself. It’s a dream! I arrived a little early and as the previous appointment was coming to a close I was able to browse the sample sale rack a bit and found a few I liked. I also worked my way through a few other racks in the front of the shop, but prices are fairly steep here so I had to be careful! Nothing worse than finding your dream dress out of your price range I kept reminding myself. Once I had a good number of choices I began trying them on one by one. It is so fun to step into a wedding dress. Pure happiness, I tell you! Each time I would come out from the dressing area my sister would gasp with delight.
So. Much. FUN.
:)
It was here at Ceremony where I found it. I felt it right away and at first I felt joy and then I felt peace.
G L E E E E E, glorious glee.
We still had one more dress appointment that afternoon and Alix so kindly offered to hold the dress for 24 hours {it was a sample dress, so I really needed to make a decision!}. Our last stop was the Vows bridal outlet in Watertown. Our experience here was not as lovely or private {Saturdays are busy!} but they do have plenty of dresses and the prices are RIGHT. I felt like I needed to come here because I made the appointment and also just to be 100% sure that I’d found the dress for me. And of course, I just kept thinking of the Ceremony dress. It was in my mind the entire time. Every dress I tried on was nowhere near as magical, not-a-single-feeling!— It was crystal clear what I needed to do.
I dialed that Beacon Hill number and made that dress mine. ♥
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P.S. That last photo is not MY dress, but a pretty one indeed!
P.P.S. Find a reason to visit Ceremony. :)
You’ll be so glad you did!
Email: hello@ceremony-boston.com
Phone: 857-277-1669
Instagram : @ceremony_boston
