A Huge Dress Mess

I was dress-less and restless for a long time during my process.  It's really not a good way to be as all the opinions, pros, and cons begin swimming through your mind and cause one to become VERY, VERY, VERY confused.

I can has Indecision (source)

I had always thought I'd get married in a simple sheath dress, kind of like the Nicole Miller I had for a prom dress.  Here's an example of what I was looking for:

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 I love how classic and simple it is.  However, I am about 5 inches too short to pull this off, which I realize now.  My sheath idea went by the wayside when I went to Venice last summer with two of my bridesmaids, Carol and Amy.  We saw this dress and I fell in love:

my own photo.  I was being a creeper.

I LOVELOVELOVEEEDDDD that dress!  When I got back to the states, I scoured through the Kleinfeld's website, and Googled wedding dresses for hours on end with no luck finding this elusive dress.  The search was not fruitless, however, as I discovered this gown:

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For only $250!!!!  OK, don't judge me...this was while I was still green to everything wedding related and didn't know about the cheap Chinese dress market and how I could get a very unfortunate looking dress depending on the company.  Once I realized this, I decided I needed to find who actually made that dress.  After more hours of searching, I found out that the dress was Aurelie by Maggie Sottero.  I loved her designs and was excited at how affordable she was.  I found Ambrosia on her site and knew I was in love.

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The flowers!  The lace!  The pickups!  I was in love again.  Then I found a very very Venice like dress on etsy:

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Beautiful!  I could order it in ivory...and at $825 it was a bargain for a custom made dress.  Unfortunately, my mother nixed this idea.  She wanted me to be able to try on the dress before buying it.  Oh well.

I was now in a state of total and utter confusion.  How could I chose from such gorgeous dresses?  Well, my first course of action was to go to a store and try them on.  But that's another post for another day.

How was the dress shopping process for you?  Did you have my same issues or were you sure of what you wanted from the get go?