SUCCESS!!!

WOW. What a crazy weekend in New York.... but MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I FOUND THE PERFECT DRESS!

Day 1:
7:00 a.m. - Mom & I off to the metro to catch the bus in the city

8:30 a.m. - Finally on the road to NYC!.... I must say I picked the *best* seat in the bus with a very tall man in front of me with his seat completely reclined into my lap and his backpack in my leg room, smelly boy next to me gnawing his nails for 2 hours straight, and large man behind me eating a very garlicy, very large meal. fun fun! :)

12:30 p.m. - Arrive to Penn Station and walk 10 blocks to Broadway Dance Center to pick up Vanessa's apartment key. Then another 10 blocks up to her apartment. Drop off bags, shower.... and we're off!

1:45 p.m. - Cab to 20th St. Early, so we eat literally the fastest Sushi lunch ever! We were in and out of this sit-down restaurant in 12 minutes!

3:00 p.m. - Appointment at the renowned Kleinfeld's Bridal.... as seen on TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" tv show and many other movies and shows. Scary, scary sales person.... and nearly got talked into buying a $5200 dress that looked similar to a Cyndi Lauper 1984 outfit. Yikes! These people were like used car salesmen. Thank goodness we escaped!!

our scary aggressive sales person

4:00 p.m. - We had time to kill until our 6 pm appointment so decided to head down to the fabulous store "Morgane Le Fay" that an old college friend recommended to me. Couldn't catch a cab easily, so decided to walk. Possibly insane. Walked approximately 35-40 blocks (mom likes to point out here that I got us lost, thus making it a bit longer than should have been :)). Gorgeous clothes but not for me. Price still wrong too.

5:15 p.m. - Uh oh. We have to get up to W 35th St by 6 p.m. Time to SPEED WALK!! (approximately 40-45 blocks in 45 minutes)

6:00 p.m. - Appointment at Jenny Yoo bridal. Great stuff. Possibly found one! We'll be back again with the girl's for opinion. Oh, and the prices is SO right here.

7:00 p.m. - Walk another 15 blocks north to meet my good friend Natalie for dinner.

8:00 p.m. - Dinner

9:30 p.m. - Walk another 6 blocks to our apartment.

10:00 p.m. - Legs throbbing. Mom moaning about sore legs :) Lots of laying now

11:00 p.m. - Pass out.

Day 2
8:30 a.m. - Up and ready for another full day of shopping! I think we'll do a bit more cabbing today :)

10:15 a.m. - Breakfast at the corner Diner in the Meatpacking District... waiting for stores to open. As mom says "What's wrong with this town?! They're crazy to open at 11 a.m. and 12 p.m.!"

11:00 a.m. - Stores unlock doors and we hit the pavement.... Explore approximately 15 stores in the first 45 minutes.

11:45 a.m. - Feeling completely deflated and discouraged because I was most hopeful for the Meatpacking District. But then, alas... standing on the corner about to catch a cab to give up and meet Michele at Penn Station, I look up and see white dresses in a window across the large intersection on the 2nd floor of an unlabeled building. This was actually right next to where we were dropped off, but I guess sometimes you just need to change your perspective a bit!

Mom and I literally run across the street to find the door. We find a door with a very large "400" and a list of buzzers with the first one handwritten "Gabriella New York".
Mom buzzes while I start getting calls from Michele and Claudia that they are arriving early and about to get off the bus! The women tells mom that we need an appointment but we are welcome to come on up and look. Up we go to a very small boutique with maybe about 30 dresses at most.

The girl was very welcoming and asked what I was looking for. I give her a quick description of what I think I've figured out that I want. She reaches into the rack, pulls one out and says "Like this?" I respond, "Actually.... YES!" We talk about setting up an appointment for Sunday morning before we head out of town at 2 p.m.... but then she says "actually we have 20 minutes before the next appointment comes... let's do this really fast." So, I rush to the dressing room, try it on and am in love instantly! For the first time after trying on about 40 dresses I say "I think this is it!". I undress quickly, set my appointment to come back on Sunday with the girls and we rush up to Penn Station to meet Claudia and Mish for our 1:00 p.m. Jenny Yoo appointment.

1:00 p.m. - Show the girls the Jenny Yoo dress and they like it a lot. It's a good option if the other one doesn't work out.

1:30 p.m. - Say goodbye to Claudia and we head up to drop off Mish's bags.

1:45 p.m. - Catch a cab and head south to Soho for more shopping. Ate lunch. So many fun stores here. Prada, Vera Wang, Chanel... Of course bought nothing.

4:00 p.m. - Appointment at store called Blue (I think I secretly wanted to buy a dress here :) haha). This was an independent designer. What's interesting though is that the dress she described that would be perfect for me was basically the same dress that I loved at Gabriella New York! So, we moved on...

5:00 p.m. - More shopping. Found a PERFECT dress for Mom at Jill Stuart, but unfortunately not the right size so now we're searching for 2 dresses.

6:00 p.m. - Appointment at Nicole Miller. Lasted 5 minutes as they had nothing. Escaped the Soho madness and crowds by actually running down a cab.... You start to get aggressive when you have cabs stolen from you by not moving fast enough!

7:00 p.m. - Dinner back in Hell's Kitchen (Vanessa's neighborhood). This restaurant was hilarious! It wasn't even 8 p.m. yet and there were girls dancing on the bar. It seemed like a quiet Italian restaurant... boy were we wrong.

9:00 p.m. - Mom heads home, Mish and I head to Valhalla (the bar on the corner) for a few drinks.

Day 3
9:30 a.m. - Pack up and move out.

10:00 a.m. - Off to the Garment District to find some undergarments for trying THE dress. This was a hilarious experience. We walk into this tiny, thin store with small boxes from floor to ceiling along every wall. I tell them what I'm looking for and the woman takes me behind a curtain, tells me to strip saying [insert very thick, stereotypical New Yorker accent] "Honey, I've
seen it all. Take it off." haha! Imagine quite a bit of yanking and tugging behind the curtain. But it works and we buy it.

10:45 a.m. - Early for our appointment so we're back at the same Meatpacking District diner on the corner for breakfast. ... plus I was with 2 people seriously jonesing for their coffee - that could get ugly :)

11:30 a.m. - Appointment back at Gabriella New York. Got the approvals of me, Mom, Michele and Claudia. Confirmed -- We've FOUND IT!!!! Bought it and we've off to the bus to head home.

Amazing how we found it just under the wire! I'm so excited about it and think it's perfect for the occasion and for me. Should be getting it in June or July.

I think that Brandon will be blown away :).... or at least I hope!

I am so thankful for having the best mom in the world that has spent so many days with me on this project. And to such amazing friends who look time out of their weekends to shop with me and give their honest opinions. I could not have done this without them... or I could have been resembling Cyndi Lauper circa 1984 on the big day.