Bride Buys 13 Wedding Dresses in Search for 'Dream' Gown. Now Admits She’d ‘Do Everything Differently’ If She Could (Exclusive)
Bride Buys 13 Wedding Dresses in Search for 'Dream' Gown. Now Admits She’d ‘Do Everything Differently’ If She Could (Exclusive)
Tereza ShkurtajSat, May 2, 2026 at 11:58 AM UTC
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Courtney in her wedding dress (left); several of her optionsCredit: Joie Elie Photography; Nook Knacks Shop -
Courtney, a New Jersey public school teacher, spent over a year searching for her wedding dress, guided by a vision she had held since childhood
Along the way, she bought 13 different dresses in an effort to find "the one"
In the end, she chose a dress that worked best for her, even without the “moment” she had always expected
One New Jersey woman had been picturing her wedding dress for nearly half her life. As a teenager, she sat on her couch watching Say Yes to the Dress, mentally sketching every detail of what she would one day wear — an A-line silhouette with soft lace and feminine detailing.
When the time came in April 2024 to finally find “the one,” Courtney, who asked for her last name to be omitted, gave herself more than a year before her June 2025 wedding, walking into her first bridal appointment armed with a Pinterest photo she had saved years earlier, certain she would recognize it instantly.
Instead, the search stretched far beyond anything she had anticipated, eventually leaving her stuck with 13 dresses and out thousands of dollars. “I didn’t think I was asking for anything too impossible, in fact, I never imagined it would be so difficult to find something so simple,” Courtney tells PEOPLE exclusively.
From the moment Courtney stepped into her first bridal appointment, something felt off. The dresses she was shown didn’t reflect the vision she had carried with her for years, and the disconnect was immediate.
“I would turn to look in the mirror and couldn’t recognize myself. I felt like a stranger in every dress I put on,” the 31-year-old public school teacher recalls. “They were all stiff, tight, itchy and covered in sequins.”
Over the next several weeks, she visited multiple stores and also expanded her search online, trying on more than 20 dresses in person and ordering additional options through at-home services.
By early summer 2024, frustration had set in. “After trying on over 20 dresses, none of which resembled what I had originally wanted, I became convinced my dress doesn’t exist,” Courtney reveals.
Courtney trying on dresses in store.Credit: Nook Knacks Shop
Hoping customization would solve the problem, Courtney turned to independent dressmakers, and in June 2024, she ordered her first custom gown on Etsy.
“With a few customizations, I purchased my dream dress for just $500…one year before the wedding,” she explains. “I thought it was such a smart investment.”
When the dress arrived in September 2024, however, the excitement quickly faded after she noticed it had an orange hue.
“I lifted it out and to my horror the lace was covered in clear plastic sequins — sequins that had not been disclosed in the listing description or in any of the photos,” Courtney reveals. “When I put the dress on, the bra cups sewn into the sheer top were lopsided and distracting. The dress was also too big.”
Dress one; dress two.Credit: Nook Knacks Shop
Unwilling to give up, Courtney quickly moved on to custom dress number two, again turning to Etsy in search of something that felt closer to her vision. This time, she leaned into a simpler, more understated design, but the result missed the mark in a completely different way.
“The dress arrived and looked like a Victorian undergarment. I had scaled back too far.”
By November 2024, with eight months to go until her wedding, Courtney found herself at a crossroads. “Looking back, this should have been the point where I returned to the stores,” she admits. Instead, she decided to double down, ordering multiple dresses at once in hopes that at least one would work.
Dress three; dress four.Credit: Nook Knacks Shop
Dresses three and four arrived soon after, but the outcome felt all too familiar. “They arrived and once again, I had been betrayed by sequins. Aside from this, I put them on and yet again felt like a stranger; what looked beautiful on the hanger felt like a ridiculous poofy Halloween costume on me.”
Still searching for the right balance, Courtney continued ordering on Etsy. Dresses five and six followed shortly after, even though she hadn’t initially planned to buy more. As her options grew, so did the contrast between them.
“You’re probably questioning my sanity right about now,” she says humorously. “You’re probably thinking that all of these gowns are entirely different from one another. I kept flip-flopping between elaborate lace gowns, hating them and then scaling back to simple designs and hating those, too. I couldn’t find anything just right.”
Dress five; dress six.Credit: Nook Knacks Shop
Of them all, dress five came the closest to what she had envisioned — at least on paper. “Dress five was a contender, not because I loved it, but because it was good enough,” Courtney shares.
Dress six, however, felt like a breakthrough after it checked off every box on her list. When it arrived in January 2025, she was convinced her search was finally over.
“Dress six looked perfect,” she reveals. “A-line, delicate lace, sleeves, high neckline, feminine and flowy.”
But once again, reality didn’t match expectations. “Disaster struck: the arm holes were too small. They were so tight I couldn’t even get the dress pulled on all the way to zipper it closed.”
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Dress seven; dress eight.Credit: Nook Knacks Shop
With just months to go, the pressure mounted. By March 2025, and still waiting on a hopeful replacement for dress six, Courtney found herself slipping back into old habits.
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“Panicking, I found myself scrolling through Etsy once again,” she tells PEOPLE.
That search eventually led to dress seven, one she immediately regretted. “I even tried cancelling the order,” she recalls. “It arrived and... I hated it. The lace was so stiff and itchy. I vowed to stop buying from Etsy — only took seven dresses.”
Around the same time, she ordered dress eight, this time off an official wedding dress site, hoping for a reliable alternative. When it finally arrived, it offered a rare moment of relief.
“It arrived and it fit me perfectly. It was so flattering,” she says. “Despite the long sleeves, it became the top contender."
But still, she "kept looking."
Dress 12, her wedding gownCredit: Joie Elie Photography
In April 2025, that sense of urgency turned into panic when the long-awaited replacement for dress six finally arrived.
“My worst fears had come true. The replacement dress arrived in mid-April and the sleeves were still too tight,” she reveals. “I don’t know what came over me. I became hysterical. We were two months away from the wedding and I didn’t have a dress I loved.”
What followed was a final wave of last-minute decisions. Between April and May 2025, Courtney decided to order dresses nine, 10, 11 and 12 from the “sketchiest looking website” she had “ever seen.”
“I couldn’t find a single review online, not even a Reddit post,” she recalls. “In the beginning of this journey, I never would have risked it. At this point, I had nothing left to lose.”
After learning that all four dresses could be tailored to her size and would arrive in two weeks, Courtney quickly added them to her cart.
“I added customizations to all four, such as changing the length or neckline. I was taking no chances,” she emphasizes. “I messaged customer service, making sure the armholes were big enough, I had the dresses made exactly to my measurements, and I made sure there were no sequins!"
Courtney in her dress; Courtney's grandmother on the right.Credit: Joie Elie Photography; Nook Knacks Shop
While waiting for those four dresses to arrive, Courtney says she hit her “lowest point.”
“I joked with friends that I should just wear the dress I made for the Eras Tour. In my darkest hour, I purchased dress number 13…[trying] to recreate my Eras Tour dress,” she explains. “I was going to wear a cape over it. I had lost the plot.”
But when the final batch of dresses arrived, something unexpected happened. Several of them actually worked, and for the first time, Courtney had real options.
Courtney and her bridesmaids.Credit: Joie Elie Photography
On June 27, 2025, the night before her wedding, she brought her top contenders to her hotel room — dresses eight, 10 and 12 — and made the final decision alongside her bridesmaids.
“My bridesmaids and I played dress up like it was a sleepover in 2003. We picked my veil, shoes, jewelry and ultimately decided on dress number 12,” Courtney reveals. “It was very ‘me.’ It checked every box. It was eerily similar to the photo I had pinned back in 2014.”
As she stood in the dress she would wear down the aisle, there was one final, unexpected realization: “It sort of resembled my late grandmother’s wedding dress.”
Courtney and her husband on their wedding day.Credit: Joie Elie Photography
Despite the long journey, Courtney admits that feeling still wasn’t what she had always imagined.
“If I’m being honest, I never had ‘the moment’ other brides talk about when they’ve found ‘the one,'” she shares. “I kept chasing that feeling.”
Looking back, the cost — both financial and emotional — was significant. “I wound up spending more than $3,000 in my quest to find a dress. More than I ever planned to spend,” Courtney reveals. “Obviously, it could have been worse. Some brides spend that much on one dress, and I bought 13. But of course, if I had a time machine, I’d do everything differently.”
Since her wedding, Courtney has started selling a few of her dresses. “I’ve also held onto a few to hand down to my friends getting married. I plan to donate the rest to The Angel Gown Foundation,” she says.
And if there’s one takeaway from her experience, Courtney says it’s to “stay away from Pinterest.”
“Go into the stores open-minded, try on as much as you can, pay attention to the styles and fabrics you do and don’t like, and even if you like it on the model, you might not like it on yourself,” she adds. “You may never find ‘the one,’ but that’s okay. You’ll find your dress, even if it takes 13 tries.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
