The Story Of A Special Occasion Dress

I remember last summer, the week after my eldest got engaged and announced her plans for a June 2014 wedding, I fell in love with an outfit I had seen on Brix Smith Start at Ascot. I love pink anyway so the gorgeous hat really appealed and I instantly had plans of wearing a dress that contained fuschia pink flowers so that I could wear that hat!  A couple of tweets later and Brix revealed the dress was by Zara (so it wouldn't fit, they rarely have anything decent in XL) and the hat was Philip Treacey (so that put paid to that) but for the rest of the summer I kept my eyes peeled and then before I knew it, winter stock was in the shops.



Come January and February of this year, I eagerly awaited the arrival of summer stock in hope that I would find my perfect dress. It didn't happen.  New dresses were arriving online constantly over the next few months. Still nothing.  I was getting desperate. I was happy to search high end websites like NAP and Matches as I knew for such a special occasion I was prepared to blow the budget for the right outfit.


March arrived and we had the friends and family sample sale at Net-A-Porter. Sadly most of the clothes were sample sized or damaged but when I spotted the Valentino shoes with a massive diamante type brooch thing on the front, they so lent themselves to being wedding shoes, I had to get them. I knew their purchase would send outfit plans into a tailspin but I just had to have them, they are beyond beautiful, so the search continued.


I have to say at this point that it wasn't so much that there was nothing out there in patterns or prints that I loved and I really did want something floral if I'm honest. but I have to take my body shape into consideration and that means pretty much avoiding anything that may have a seam around the waist, so it had to be some kind of cocoon or shift shape.


I had spotted a Maison Martin Marguila dress on Net-A-Porter and although I thought it was an awful lot of money for what it was, I imagined how I could make it work with the shoes but I wanted to be different and not do the matchy matchy thing, so in my head I wore everything in this shade of blue except the shoes.


Claudia passed her three month probation at NAP (although it was her second position there, she had to go through the same procedure again) and we waited patiently for her discount to be implemented. Finally she got the email and I ordered the dress convinced that it wouldn't fit as it only went up to size 14, so I thought it would at least put that one to bed and the search could continue. I ordered two dresses online that week also and then had an unplanned trip to Bluewater with middle daughter where I saw a Hobbs dress I had seen and dismissed earlier in the season and thought I actually quite liked it. A reader had also recommended it to me and I was surprised it didn't look as frumpy as I imagined when I got it on.  The good news was it was reduced from £199 to £79. I rang OH he said to get it so that I could compare with the others I had on order. So I did.

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Trying on for the first time

Two days later I had all the dresses here and tried them on one by one, praying the MMM wouldn't fit or that I would hate it. The Hobbs dress looked really nice but I felt it was a bit to Mother of the Bride predictable for me.  For someone who can't stand drawing attention to myself or having my photo taken, it was the bright blue outfit all the way. It felt special, probably only because of the price tag but it felt more "me" than the others and couldn't have been further from what I was originally hoping to find although I do have a deep affection for anything with an asymmetrical detail or two!

So there you have it, the story of my dress and all the trials and tribulations that went with it. Oh and I couldn't walk in the damn shoes and had to hold on to my husband as I navigated the cobbles on the pathway to the church and put ballet pumps on to dance the night away - what a complete and utter lightweight!

Now I am completely gutted my dress has 60% off and is now only £214 here. Sooooo bloody annoying!