Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Shopping for Your Wedding Gown

Shopping for the perfect wedding gown can be a challenge. With thousands of dresses available in the United States, finding the dress that best suits you can be quite difficult. This article provides some helpful hints for finding “your” dress.

First of all, start looking through bridal magazines for styles or designers that you like. Tear out the pages and take them with you when you go shopping -- these will help the sales staff to pull similar dresses for you to try on. Keep in mind that if the staff brings out a dress for you to try on that you don’t think you’ll like, try it on anyway -- many a bride has bought a dress that she didn’t like on the hanger, but loved wearing.

It’s a good idea to start dress shopping early -- up to a year before your wedding date if possible. Call the gown stores in advance to set up an appointment with a sales person. Bring the undergarments you plan to wear with your dress to the shop, as well as shoes. If you don’t have your shoes picked out yet, bring dress shoes with a heel about the same height as you think you will wear on your wedding day. At the shops, you will be trying on samples of wedding dresses that can range from size 6-18 (gowns run 1-2 sizes larger than normal dress sizes). Remember that the dress you order may vary slightly from the sample you see in the store; for example, if the manufacturing company runs out of one kind of lace, it may substitute a similar one.

If you can, shop on off-peak days and times. This will provide more one-on-one attention from your salesperson and a more relaxed shopping experience. Weekdays are usually less busy than weekends, and fall and winter are less hectic seasons than spring and summer, when the majority of brides are trying on, ordering, and altering their gowns.

Who you bring with you when you try on dresses is important. Bring one or two friends whose opinion you trust, but no more than three people. You might also want to bring a camera, so that you can take pictures of each dress you try on and then be able to compare the photos side-by-side at home. The photos might also be fun to look back on after your wedding, when you show your fiance which dresses you didn’t choose. Be sure to ask your salesperson if taking photos is okay -- some stores have a policy against it.

When it comes time to order your dress, it can take some designers from 4-8 months to make your dress and ship it to the store, especially if it is a foreign-based company. When the dress arrives, you will come back to the shop for 2-3 “fittings,” where you try on the dress after alterations have been done to make sure it fits properly. After your final fitting, you will take your dress with you. Be sure to bring a white sheet or two to place in your car to keep your dress clean. When you get it home, hang up your dress as high as you can so that, if you have a train it doesn’t get dirty on the floor.

Happy shopping!

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