Happy Monday!
Hope you had a great weekend and have an even better week coming up.
I was on the train to New York City bright and early on Saturday to go wedding dress shopping with my friend Christina. Amazing coincidence, the night before my friend Allison saw that I was going to New York this weekend and had asked what train I was on. Turns out she was on the same train as me as she was heading to the city to visit some friends of hers! We had a great catch-up session the entire way – hopefully the people sitting around us didn’t mind too much!
As soon as we arrived at Penn Station Allison and I parted ways. Our original plans for the day got a little modified, but it ended up working out perfectly. I received a text to meet Christina and our friends Tiffany and Karen (her other bridesmaids, minus one – her sister) at La Bergamote for brunch. There was a bit of a wait at RK Bridal (they don’t take appointments) so they had decided we should grab brunch beforehand while we waited. We sat outside in the glorious sunshine, the weather on Saturday was perfect – sunny, but had a cool crisp breeze throughout the day. Fall is coming!
I ordered the Quiche Lorraine and a latte.
Brunch was very good and definitely filled us up as we tackled our first bridal store of the day!
When I did my own wedding dress shopping (almost 5 years ago!) I never went to a huge bridal warehouse so going to RK Bridal was an experience for me. My number one reaction?
Soooo many dresses!
When we arrived we were told to walk through the space and take pictures of the tags on the dresses Christina wanted to try on. Once we were done a consultant would be assigned to us. She would collect the dresses we had chosen and would also make suggestions based on Christina’s preferences. Not going to lie, walking through the aisles and aisles of wedding dresses (RK also sells bridesmaid dresses) became a bit overwhelming and after awhile all the dresses started blending together. However we chose 7 beautiful dresses for Christina to try on here.
I loved the allusion of this dress.
Isn’t the bottom of this dress so much fun?!
Pretty soon it was time for us to head to our next bridal store destination, Kleinfeld Bridal, of “Say Yes to the Dress” fame. Christina was able to book an appointment here for 3pm.
Probably shocking to hear, but while I have heard of the show and have family and friends who watch the show religiously, I had never watched an episode before but knew the general premise of it. The brick and mortar store was a lot fancier than I thought it would be (and I don’t even know why I thought it wouldn’t be fancy). I think I was envisioning more of a “warehouse” setting like RK’s, but while the space was large to house all the beautiful wedding gowns, dressing rooms, and people, the space exuded elegance and sophistication in the decor and layout. A nice touch being clients were assigned to their own fitting room with chairs for their guests to sit on.
We had about a 10 minute wait at Kleinfeld’s so we partook in some quasi photo booth fun!
I really liked Christina’s stylist here – she made great recommendations and was quick to eliminate any dresses the bride (or her friends!) had even the slightest hesitation about. That’s my girl – cross that out stat! She also engaged with all of us, where I thought the consultant at RK’s stuck pretty close to Christina, which was fine, I just didn’t feel a connection to her. Christina probably tried on 5 dresses here….and may have even found THE ONE! It was spectacular on her and she was positively radiant. I took a picture, of course, but will not be posting it here in case it is the one. Per her stylist’s advice she is sleeping on it and plans to go back to some bridal boutiques she went to in Dallas to try on some other early contenders before making a final decision.
We took one last photo before leaving.
Soon after Tiffany peeled off from the group as she had to head back to Greenwich to feed her cutie pie Cole! Christina, Karen, and I wondered around Chelsea for a bit before grabbing dinner.
When we were up here for Tiffany’s wedding a little over a year ago, she and Christina had introduced my mom to a green juice she learned she really liked. Karen mentioned a store branch, Organic Avenue, was right by where we were so we decided to head that way so I could bring back a couple juices for mom, Tommy, and me.
The goods!
I picked up:
- A Radiance juice – Apple, cucumber, spinach, pineapple, kiwi
- An Abundance juice – Beets, carrot, apple, lemon
- A Resilience juice – Carrot, apple, turmeric, ginger
- And fresh almond milk – YUM
Karen and Christina picked up individual “shots” too.
We stopped by Rocking Horse Cafe, a Mexican spot, to grab drinks and chips and salsa. Another friend, Celeste, joined us here and for dinner. It was great to hear how she and her husband, Luke, were doing.
Sangria.
Karen had suggested we eat dinner at Westville, a casual farm to table spot that specializes in fresh vegetables. It was delightful. I will definitely be coming back here the next time I’m in the city. Not only was the food inventive, healthy, and delicious, I really liked the chill ambiance.
I ordered the kale and quinoa salad with green apples and almonds. I gobbled it up!
After dinner I had just enough time to go to Amorino with the ladies to buy gelato macaroons (yes that is a thing)! before heading back to Penn Station to train it back to DC.
This was such a fun day and I was so glad I could join Christina and the other ladies for this fun excursion. I’ll say it right here on the blog – I think Christina is going to choose the dress she found at Kleinfeld’s today as her wedding dress. 🙂
Side note: I found out about the NYC bombing on Saturday in Chelsea while still on the train from Christina. A little too close for comfort, we were right there about 40 minutes before the bomb went off. My thoughts and prayers of speedy recoveries go out to all of those injured that night.
Have a great day.
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