Mom & I took a trip to Joann's to scout out patterns and fabric. I love Joann's. My first job was at Joann's and I worked there all throughout high school and for the first summer of college. Fabric for every formal dress I wore came from Joann's and even now I frequently order from them online. So of course, Joann's was where we headed. Main goal was to go through the pattern books and hopefully find a pattern since they're currently displaying the spring/summer looks. Mom & I sat down at the pattern book table and started flipping. At the end of the day I had 4 patterns that I thought were real contenders. One was out of stock, so that was that. And one Burda 7689
I decided was basically represented in elements of the other two, so it was out.So here are the two finalists - New Look 6902
and McCalls 5806. 
Now the McCalls is a lot easier to pictures as a wedding dress b/c it IS a wedding dress pattern. And I do really like it as styled on the pictured model, but I'm not positive that I want all that shirring on the bodice - as someone who's rather petite in the bust, I could use the fullness, but I'm concerned it will be a little too busy. The pattern has an option for a non-gathered bodice, but that has seams down the front for shaping and I really wanted darts, not seams. So we have pattern 2 - New Look 6902. Which has a nice flat bodice, like I like and a slightly less full skirt. I think the flat bodice is going to end up winning out and the fuller skirt, although I might redistribute the fullness a little so the back has more fullness than the front. Also neither of these has a train, something which I gave absolutely no thought to until this very minute, so that's an issue which will need to be dealt with. The knitted train definitely needs some fabric under it so that it won't catch on the ground.I browsed through Special Occasion fabrics and wasn't really wowed, when Mom drew my attention to the swatches of special order fabrics. They had a silk twill that I really liked and we color tested white & ivory with my skin - no surprise, I looked better in ivory. It's not too yellow of an ivory, which is nice. Then Mom found a green lacey, embroidered fabric in just the right shade of green. We held the two together and she said "It's going to be so beautiful". I honestly thought she was being sarcastic for a moment, then realized that she was actually choked up! At which point I got pretty choked up myself and we ended up hugging in the middle of Joann's and totally having a "My baby's getting married!" type of moment. Mom said afterwards that she'd heard other women say that it was a very special moment when they first saw their daughter in her wedding dress. I said that it's a good thing she's a seamstress too, b/c the moment that most normal mothers and daughters would be having in a bridal salon, we were having under the flourescents at Joann's, getting teary eyed over two 12x12 swatches of fabric!
Besides being touched I also felt really relieved b/c until I saw the swatches together, I was a little nervous that the ivory/green color combo wasn't going to work. I breathed a hefty sigh of relief, I'll tell you that.
Neither of us had brought a camera, so we came back to the store the next day to photograph me with the swatches.
PS on the knitting front - I've almost finished the second repetition of the chart on the Size 13's. One more repetition, then lifeline, needle change and short rows!
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