Morgan & Tyler | The Dress

From the beginning of the search process, I knew the style of wedding dress I wanted. I thought a certain style would work best for my body type: some sort of sleeve, a lower neckline, lace details and a soft “flowy” skirt. I had modeled in a styled shoot for a photographer friend, Emily March in a dress similar to the style I desired.

My mom, sister and I spent a weekend together in April going to a few bridal salons in the Cornelius area and each dress I liked seemed to have something I wanted to change about it — whether a lace detail or a sleeve/strap addition. Something I learned from this process was to have someone take pictures of you in each dress. Seeing a dress from a different perspective may drastically change your opinion of it.

I was heading up to NYC in late May with one of my best friends to visit my little brother who was attending law school there at the time. I decided to schedule an appointment at a BHLDN salon to try on a few of their gowns to see if they had a better fit for my style. While looking through my Pinterest board, I discovered that a handful of my pins were from a specific designer, Leanne Marshall.

She was the season 5 Project Runway winner and is known for her “flowy” fabrics, exactly what I was looking for. I thought it was a long shot but I gave their studio in midtown Manhattan a call to see if they had any appointments available during my visit… they only had one.

The stylist asked me to send in some of their dress styles I liked before my appointment so that she could have them pulled for me. I sent in the following style names:

“Heloise, Talithia, Hannah Ivy, Ilaria, Harper, Marleigh — The following are out of budget but I like as well, Stella, Leigh, and Lorelei.” My sweet stylist, Angela who happened to be from South Carolina, told me she was hesitant to pull dresses over budget but she would pull my favorite dress for my appointment.

My brother, Emily and I showed up to the studio and were told no photos could be taken during the appointment. We explained that it would mean the world if I could FaceTime my mom in for the appointment since she wasn’t there and they graciously agreed.

I tried on the dresses Angela had pulled starting with Heloise and still seemed to find something little I wanted to change about each style. Until, I tried on one of the out-of-budget dress I had decided to try on, Lorelei. As soon as I stepped out in this dress Casey and Emily’s faces changed and everyone was silent. They knew as well as I did that this was the one. It fit like a glove, no clamps needed and was everything that I was looking for — lace sleeves, v-neck, flowy skirt.

But the price… I started to get emotional as I knew how much it was and asked to take it off asap and get back into my other favorite dress. Angela felt SO bad but I kept reassuring her (and myself) this it’s not her fault (truth), it’s 100% okay (truth), and that I loved this other dress just as much (lie).

She told me that she wanted to go speak with someone in the back to see if there was anything they could do for me to be able to get Lorelei. This was a very sweet gesture but I just knew that any discount was simply not going to be enough.

Angela came back into the room almost in tears and quickly started explaining that, “this specific dress has a new seamstress and the seamstress is sewing the skirt onto the lace bodice inverted from how it is currently sewed.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant until she explained that it means that the dress I fell in love with is no longer the “current” design pattern and they will be releasing a new sample to the floor in a few weeks. Which means I could buy the current floor sample for….$$$$ off and just slightly over my budget!

Cue all of the happy tears and asking to be put back in the dress as soon as possible! I couldn’t believe I was going to be able to buy this dress and actually immediately walk out of the studio with it in my (or my brother’s) arms. Which is exactly what we did. Wrapped up in a garment bag we carried her out, onto the subway and straight into the safe in our hotel room for safe keeping. Due to the soft flowy nature of Leanne’s gowns, Angela told me all I would need to get is a plastic zip sweater bag from the Container Store and the dress would fit right at the base of my carry-on luggage!

This story still amazes me to this day. The fact that I was able to purchase a Leanne Marshall sample off the floor and the only alterations needed was to the hem… How crazy is that?! Thankful to have been able to experience this experience with one of my dearest friends and my little brother who ended up not being able to come to my wedding because he was away for Naval Officer Candidacy School. He was dearly missed on my wedding day but he was there that day in NYC and got to see when I found my dress. It’s such a special memory we will always share.