wedding details: the dress

if you've been following my blog, i know i've posted a lot about details for our wedding. now that it is over i feel it's time to share some of those AWESOME details. i feel like i have a story to tell about almost each piece i wore, so i'm going to break up the posts that deal with my attire.

The Dress:

my dress was Iliana by Maggie Sottero. the dress was shown online in silver, so originally i had the idea in my mind that i wanted that. i had been browsing Maggie dresses over six months before we even got engaged, and this was one of the few i picked out that i looked at daily. like, seriously. daily.

i totally envisioned myself wearing this dress at our wedding. when the dress hunt started towards the end of that year (2009), i checked three bridal stores out and had a favorite from each place. none were the Iliana dress. i was so incredibly close to getting another beautiful dress from David's Bridal, but i walked away from all three stores without purchasing anything. i could not commit. i had plenty of time before the wedding, but i felt i needed to nail the dress before any other details could be envisioned. i knew i needed to try those other Maggie dresses i had been pining over for months. i finally called the first store we stopped at and asked if they had them. and i gave them like, 15 dresses to check. i think they only had three of these. Iliana was one of them.

i was SO excited to try it on and as soon as i did, i knew it had to be the dress. i was nervous my mum wouldn't like it as much because it was so simple (no beading, one fabric), but the way the dress fit me, the fabric, the straps, the amazing train and how it looked in the back - all made this dress so unique and glamorous, everyone loved it. i did go with the ivory color - i described it to people as melted white chocolate. how could one NOT love that!?

to me the dress was perfect, especially for my now-husband. he is a minimal kind of guy (you should see our apartment!), so i knew he would appreciate a dress that wasn't busy. also, my engagement ring is very simple and modern, my wedding band is just a plain, flat-edge band. the style of this dress dictated simplicity and modernism in our wedding theme, with punches of crazy details in things like the shoes and jewelry.

i don't have any full-length dress pictures yet, but this is one of my favorites from our photographer's set so far:

lies! okay, this one is from my sister's series of pics: