The Path to the Dress: The Decision

Last week I went shopping with the boy's mom and sister to finally decide on a dress. We were around 3 hours or so and I'm guessing I tried on around 30 or 40 dresses. In case you were worried I won't be showing you every single one of those. But by the end of our time we had narrowed it down to at least 4 top contenders.
If you remember, this one is similar in shape to one of the favorite the first day I had gone shopping. What was interesting about this dress is that's it's more silver than white. Against all the other dresses it looked very noticeable, but on it's a little more subtle. And while it isn't the clearest picture, here's another shot where you can see some of the bead work closer up.
The next dress fit almost everything I was looking for in a dress. It had a big ballgown type feel. And it was really simple which I liked. Looking back at the pictures now though, the dress doesn't scream out to me.
This dress was really similar to the next dress, which I still think is pretty amazing looking at the pictures.
It's hard to tell in the picture, but there's quite a bit of bead work in the front. Although it is a little easier to see on the train, which had to be my favorite part of the dress.
But while I really did like this option, I kept going back to my favorite dress from our first day of shopping. (There's also the fact that the one above was discontinued so I'd need to buy the display dress. Whereas this next one is still in production.)
This one had a nice train as well, and while it is quite as long it would be a little more manageable. (Plus I came into shopping not wanting a huge train.) And with buttons trailing down the back it had a few pretty details of its own.
So yes, after 6 months of waiting, I went back to the same dress, and officially sent my order it. You would hope that if I still love the dress after 6 months, I'll still love it by the time my wedding gets here. And while it isn't the reason I picked it, part of me likes the fact that my mom at least saw a picture of me wearing the dress I chose. So here's one more picture of me wearing the dress, but back from August, which would have been the dress my mom had seen.
How long and how many shopping trips did it take before you decided on a dress?