Wedding Dress Shopping: An Uphill Struggle

So would've thought that shopping for a Wedding dress would be SO STRESSFUL.

In my head it's all lovely, lunches out, floating into lovely shops where they give you glasses of fizz (or at least a cup of tea), coming out of the changing room to gasps of delight and swirling around in beautiful dresses.

The reality, lunches out cause me to eat too much and give me a tummy ache during the appointment, the shops all seem to run late and so you run out of time. I'm too small for all the dresses, so I have to be clipped, pegged and pinned into them, meaning I can't bend down to pick up the dress. And as I'm so short, the dresses are all far to long. Cue me tripping out of a changing room and stumbling into a block to make me look taller.

Galmorous!

All in all, that makes it sound a lot worse than it is, it is very fun (as long as you don't mind standing in your underwear in front of a total stranger!)

What I'm running the real stress and struggle is finding the right dress, and then once I've found a dress to try on finding somewhere that stocks that dress!

I've been on 2 trips, spanning 2 months and I haven't found the dress, I haven't had the wow moment. I'm not even sure I'll have that moment.

Everyone had a bigger and better reaction (bridesmaids, my mum and the ladies in the shop) than me to all the dresses I tried on.

I feel like I'm striving to find some perfection that isn't there, to find a better dress that won't exist. Because how would I find the dress that has everything perfect and within a budget?

I currently have 4 different spreadsheets open, all with multiple tabs, I've sent nearly 30 emails to dress shops in the last day and a half about designers, dresses and appointments.

To try on the dresses I want to I'm going to have to travel miles to try on just one dress. Then miles to somewhere else to try on one more dress.

Should I give up on that and settle for one I've found?

And meanwhile I've got the wedding timeline in my mind - must buy dress by 8 months.

I'm at 10 months now, that only gives me another 2 months to get this in the bag!
But my bridesmaids aren't free for another month, the dress shops are booked up for a month and a half.

How do I do this?
Why is it such a difficult task?

Am I the only one that has so much trouble?

I'm feeling so confused, stressed and overwhelmed by this.
I just don't know what to do next.