Bridesmaid Dress Shopping

The time to go bridesmaid dress shopping for my soon-to-be sister-in-law's wedding finally arrived on Saturday. Of course I had planned to have lost weight by now... big shock that didn't happen. As much as I was looking forward to the girly fun of bridesmaid dress shopping, I was nervous that my weight would be an issue and I would embarrass myself and make life difficult for the bride. Instead of getting too stressed about it, I just told myself to be grateful that I am no longer a size 24 and have fun.

Our first stop was a fancy, appointment only, boutique that made me a little nervous. They didn't have any sizes larger than a 14, so I just had to try the dresses on and not zip them. Let me tell you, fat spilling out of taffeta is not a good look! Lucky I wasn't the only one with this problem because even the other girls were struggling to get zipped into their dresses-- those designer brands run very small.

We didn't find anything we loved, but just as we were about to leave the shop assistant pointed out a dress on a mannequin that we should try. The dress on the mannequin was the only one they had left and it was a size 12. Given that our group consisted of sizes 10, 12 and 16 this was going to be a little tricky. Weirdly enough when we all tried it on it looked amazing on all of us, even though it didn't zip up on me or the size 12 girl. It was just like the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants!

We found out that the dress was $460 and wouldn't arrive until a week before the wedding, so we decided to keep looking. We moved onto a much cheaper area that had multiple shops to try and spent hours drowning in chiffon and satin. I still struggled to fit into many dresses because most shops didn't stock above a size 14, even though they said they could be ordered in all sizes up to 24. WTF? Am I the only fat bridesmaid in Melbourne? Nonetheless, it was still fun and here is one photo I managed to get of me with two of the other bridesmaids (another one lives in the UK and couldn't come) trying on dresses before we were told off for taking pictures.

Holy crap, that is what happens to your arms when you stop weight training and don't see the sun for 6 months. I have a lot of work to do before the wedding!!!

So after many hours of shopping the only conclusion we had come to was that we should hit up the internet and look at ordering a dress online. It seemed that most of the dresses were being ordered from China anyway, so we decided we should skip the middleman and order directly. A few of us spent hours looking through dress sites on Saturday night and one of the girls managed to find the original dress that we all loved and for $400 less too!

What do you think?

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The colour is still to be decided once we order a colour swatch and a sample dress to check for quality. I really don't mind, I am just happy we have decided on a dress that isn't tight around my fat stomach. Phew. The wedding is at the end of February, so now I just have to work on toning my arms and getting my fake tan happening!