Almost, But Not Quite, THE Dress

I bought my dress almost a year ago (when you have a super-long engagement, you try to get things out of the way). It wasn't exactly intentional, but my Man of Honor had this fantasy of sipping champagne and playing Barbie with me in NYC. Things didn't go as planned, and we wound up booze-less at R.K. Bridal, which is wonderful--I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a more traditional wedding dress but without a lot of the fluff and bullshit that you get at other bridal salons.

Before we went, I had a vision: cream or ivory floor-length with no train & a lace-up bodice, simple, straps (the width didn't matter, I just needed the reassurance my boobs weren't going to fall out), not poofy at all. With green embroidery all over, not just along the neckline and hem. Unfortunately, this vision didn't seem to exist. Alfred Angelo seemed to come closest to my vision, but they all fell short. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist for my own good... Anyway, I tell Gilda (the lovely Jewish Grandmother every girl needs) that I need a dress with color. We pulled about a dozen dresses and I surprisingly loved one enough to buy it (the 70% discount didn't hurt either!) And it was an Alfred Angelo, whom I had grown to love.

 Gilda's holding up the sleeve for demonstration--those babies are coming off!

Close-up detail of the lavender embroidery

The train's coming off too--we're bustling the organza to keep the embroidery

Not exactly how I described Dream Dress, is it? Not too far off though, and most of the issues (like the train) is an easy fix. I can live with the lavender because the flowers are gorgeous and the color works with my color scheme of sapphire and clover. I'll have to look into the poof-factor at my first real fitting. But I couldn't leave well enough alone. I just HAD to keep looking at Alfred's site, that tempting bastard. To the UK section no less. And there it was.

A little poofier than I wanted, and the train would probably be impossible to get rid of, but it has a gather at the waist I had came to love when I was trying on other dresses, and the faux panel is another element I loved while looking at dresses on line (spaghetti straps can be added). And there are 60 color options for the embroidery! There's no way I wouldn't be able to find my shade of green with that many options!!!! Alas though, I have a dress (even if it did cost under $300), and it's already with the seamstress, and if I wanted to try New Dress on, the closest retailer is in London...not a trip I can afford to make even if I didn't already have a dress. I fear I'm being kind of bridezilla-uber-perfectionist here...but am I going to regret this forever, or will my rational brain eventually come to terms with the fact that New Dress, while very close to perfect, is just as "flawed" (for lack of a better term) as Current Dress? Will New Dress eventually fade into the background as I go for real fittings and make Current Dress closer to Dream Dress?