Thanks everyone, I'm relieved to have some of my photos. I have about 250 photos now, but still a lot I'm missing. I haven't seen any come through the Dropbox today, but she is allegedly dropping off the CD of all photos to my parents house tomorrow so I'll see them all soon enough. I am going to Disneyland tomorrow and since I live in an apartment (so no front porch), she is going to drop them off at my parents house when she goes to visit her parents tomorrow (we went to school together so our parents live in the same city). Anyway, I'm going to go take a good look at the ones I have tonight.
Today I tried on some dresses! I went to a shop called R-Mine (famous for Kendra of Girls Next Door getting her dress there). I knew they were having a sample sale last weekend but I came down with the flu so I couldn't go! I went today and the sample sale was still going on. A consultant helped me pick out three dresses to try on. I was trying to stay within my budget of $1000, although I certainly am not too keen on spending that much on a sample dress.
I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of myself in the dresses, sadly.
The first one was Pronovias - Legado. I picked this one because it had some sparkly bits that are kind of hard to see in the picture.
I thought this was very pretty although it had some issues with the zipper. I liked the rouching, the champagne-esque color, and I loved the touches of sparkle, and the price was good - $690! Still, I felt it was missing something, it just wasn't the dress for me.
Next was Rivini - Fifteen. Pretty, but after wearing the first one with the sparkles, this one didn't do anything for me. And for $1,100, this was not the dress for me.
The third dress I loved! I didn't LOVE LOVE LOVE it, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. Rosa Clara - Olga.
First of all, the pictures do not do this dress justice! This dress looks fabulous on a person with a REAL figure. The only negative was that I was a little too b**balicious in this dress. I don't mind so much but we don't want to give grandma a heart attack. I loved the little bow detail and I loved the layers at the bottom. It's really difficult to see from the picture how pretty the bottom of the dress is. It has layers of different types of fabric. This was the first dress I've tried on that I didn't want to take off!!!!
Negatives? Well, the b**balicious factor (easily covered up with a bit of lace or something), the mermaid style was a little too low for me, comparable to the Ariel dress, and the dress was BRIGHT WHITE although surprisingly I didn't seem to mind too much. Yes yes yes, you read correctly, I *might* not be as opposed to wearing white as I once was.
Oh yeah, one other HUGE negative. The tag on the dress read $2195. Silly me, I assumed this was the regular price. NO, THIS WAS THE SAMPLE PRICE, AAAAAAARGH!
My consultant talked to Armine the owner, and she said she could bring it down closer to $1700. Still too much for me.
So I left the shop a little brokenhearted but at least I found a style that I really love!
I also stopped at the craft shop and attempted to make my own bridal dress hanger a la
PixieDust1969's DIY tutorial. I'm not super happy with the way it turned out but I have lots of wire left over to try again. It actually photographs much better than it looks in person.
I had a little incident with the pliers since I apparently don't know my own Hulk strength and snapped the wire, so I taped it. That's why there's a space between the heart and Tim.
DF told me he thinks it looks really good, but that's only because he hasn't see the professional ones!
What do you guys think?
For payment I require one (1) churro. 
I've got almost 200 photos so far and they are still trickling in. So I guess I'll have a busy weekend of sorting photos! I'll post the best of the best here 
I'm glad you got a good idea of what kind of style you would want now, hopefully it'll make the hunt a little easier.
She says, "I can give you a couple, is that enough?" and I was like, welllllll we kind of need around 50. 
So then DF said we should just design our own magnet and forget the hotel key idea. 
