Featured On ‘Say Yes To The Dress’—

For One Bride, Finding The Right Wedding Dress Was A Well-Documented Event

By Shannon Hicks

When Kristin Mulrane married Bill Hall last August, the Newtown native wore a mermaid-style wedding gown. It was the gown she truly wanted, even after she initially said Yes to another dress.

Friends, family, and all viewers of TLC will have the opportunity to see some of the behind-the-scenes decisionmaking that went into the search for Kristin’s perfect wedding dress this weekend when TLC airs a new episode of Say Yes To The Dress. Called “Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…,” the program will premiere on Friday, April 1, at 9 pm, on TLC.

Now in its sixth season, Say Yes To The Dress goes behind the scenes at Kleinfeld Bridal in New York City, one of the world’s largest and busiest bridal salons. Part fashion show, part bridal story, part family therapy, the series uncovers the hurdles every staff member faces to make each bride completely satisfied on what may be the single most important day of her life. Thirty-minute episodes generally cover three or four different brides as they arrive at the boutique to begin searching for their dress, return for fittings, change a dress’s design, and sometimes even change their mind about their dress.

Kristin has long been a fan of the program, so she took the initiative in contacting the network.

“I’ve always loved the show. I’ve watched it religiously last couple of years,” Kristin said this week. A native of Newtown, she spoke with The Newtown Bee on Tuesday, from the upscale deli she and husband Bill Hall have owned and operated in New York for two years. “I went online and applied to be on it. I sent photos and answered series of questions, and then they just right away e-mailed me back and called to set up appointment to meet with them.”

Kristin first went to Kleinfeld’s in October 2009, along with her mother, future mother-in-law and some of her bridesmaids. She had already tried on a few dresses elsewhere, but had not yet settled on The dress for her wedding day.

“I had tried on dresses twice before, so I pretty much had a good idea of what I was looking for,” Kristin said this week.

Working with Kleinfeld consultant Dianne, Kristin picked a dress that day, but was not thrilled after the fact.

“It was, I think, the pressure of being there. I think I just got caught up in the moment and wanted to get the dress with everyone there,” she said. “But when I got home, I just hated my dress.”

With her then-fiancée in tow — and without telling her family and other friends — Kristin returned to the salon to look at dresses again.

According to an episode synopsis provided by Discovery (TLC is a Discovery Communications network): “Two weeks before her wedding, Kristin is back for her fitting. But [she isn’t about to put on] the dress she originally bought. Kristin changed her mind after the initial appointment, returned — without her mom — and bought another dress.

“Now her mom is seeing the new gown for the first time.”

Changing her mind and going back for the dress she really wanted, Kristin said,  was “a big decision.”

It was a good one, though, because Kristin, 26, was completely comfortable with what she was wearing on that sunny afternoon when she walked into St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Stonington on her father’s arm.

Kristin’s parents are Pam and Tom Mulrane of Newtown. Bill is a son of Katherine and Robert Hall of Youngstown, Ohio.

For her wedding day, Kristin selected a mermaid-style dress from Romona Keveza’s “Legends” line. It featured rouching around the midsection, a sweetheart neckline, and a short train.

 “It wasn’t too far off from the first one, it was just what I really wanted,” she said. Kristin and Bill were married on August 28, 2010 — a sunny, cloudless day, judging from the photographs of the day. It was one year and two weeks after Bill surprised Kristin with a proposal during a birthday weekend trip to Newport, R.I.

Monsignor Robert Weiss, the pastor of St Rose of Lima in Newtown, officiated the marriage ceremony, and the young couple celebrated with a reception at Saltwater Farm Vineyard, also in Stonington.

(Their wedding is also one of three featured in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Connecticut Bride magazine.)

A TLC/Discovery camera crew was with Kristin for each of her appointments at Kleinfeld — “They taped my original dress selections from start to finish, as well as when I changed my dress, and the fitting for that one,” she confirmed — but she does not yet know how much will be used for this weekend’s episode.

“I haven’t seen it yet,” she said.

Kristin and Bill have not decided what they will do when it is time for the episode to air Friday night. The couple, who live in Norwalk, owns an upscale sandwich shop in White Plains called Melt Sandwich Shop. They may close a little early for the day, Kristin said.

“We were thinking about doing a viewing party, but we’re not sure,” she said. “We’re thinking of just doing something small, watching with our family and maybe a friend or two, something like that.”

Newtown residents can join the rest of TLC’s Say Yes To The Dress fan base on Friday night to find out how the Kleinfeld appointments went, and what the reaction was when Kristin debuted her new dress to her family and friends during a fitting appointment two weeks before the wedding.

Looking back this week on the experience, Kristin said, “It was fun. It was a lot of fun.”