Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

This weekend, I went home to New Jersey to see my mom. Similar to our Vegas experience, the flights were a bit of mess and I ended up taking the last flight out of DC, landing in Newark around 10:30pm.

Mom picked me up, drove me home, and we sat on my bed talking and catching up. Shortly after midnight, I decided I needed to get some sleep, so I headed upstairs to get ready for bed.

Hanging on the door of my mom's office/sewing room, was my sister's bridesmaid dress in its Weddington Way bag. I said, "Oooh is this Tati's dress?" and went to open the bag to see it. Pushing a little too hard on the door, the door swung open and there it was, my wedding dress, draped so beautifully on the sewing mannequin my mom bought, finished, and complete.

I gasped and immediately started crying.

See, up to this point, I've only ever tried on pieces of my dress. The lining, the top, the sides, but never a full dress, and I had never even seen the skirt (which is really what makes the dress), yet here it was, fitted perfectly to a mannequin that's just my size.

The last time I had a fitting, it just wasn't quite right and there were a lot of tears in trying to figure out exactly what was wrong (it was just the fit), but this time, I knew, without even putting it on, that it was perfect.

Saturday morning, my mom and I headed back to the fabric shops in NYC to scope out some smaller details for my dress. Once we got all of that sorted, we stopped off at Heartland Brewery for lunch (and the end of the Argentina v. Iran match) before heading over to RK Bridal to shop for dresses for my mom.

We didn't realize that they were closing in 45 minutes when we got there, and my mom didn't think she'd be able to find a dress. My mom is very fashion forward and didn't at all want a typical mother of the bride dress (they're all so frumpy looking!), but with the help of Malak, a super sweet woman who worked at RK, we found my mom exactly what she had been looking for, and were even able to get it at a discount! My mom's dress is gorgeous and she is going to be one hot mama!

With dress in hand, we headed home to finally get me into my wedding dress! It fit perfectly. Right now, the dress is hand stitched together, so that it would be easier for my mom to make adjustments in case it doesn't fit, so it isn't completely finished, but she said it only needs another 2 hours of work or so, and I don't need to have any more fittings, which is so exciting!

So, there I was, standing in my bedroom in my wedding dress and I just loved it so so so much. It was so perfect! When we went shopping for ideas, I didn't really like anything I tried on, but here I was, in a dress that my mom designed and made by hand, and it was more perfect than I could have ever imagined.

My mom started tearing up, and then I started crying, and then we sat there hugging and crying and it was so emotional and so special, and I'm so excited to walk down the aisle in the most beautiful dress I've ever imagined, that was so much a labor of love.

This weekend, I assembled a sample of our invitations and tried on my entire wedding dress for the first time. With less than three months to go, our wedding is finally starting to feel real and I couldn't be more excited!

Sunday, my sister came over with her girls for breakfast, along with my aunt, and we all just hung out together before I made my way to the airport and then to the train station after not getting on a flight. I took an Amtrak to Union Station, had The Pilot meet me across the street to watch the USA game (ugh) and then headed home to call it a night.