How to Choose Your Wedding Dress
Buying your wedding dress is one of the most exciting purchases of your life but dress shopping can be stressful so here are a few tips to help you enjoy the experience and be able to look back on it as a happy time.
Buying Tips
It’s important to listen to what the consultant in the bridal shops suggest. They are seeing dresses and brides all day long and really know their stuff. Don’t just do what they say – BUT they are well worth listening to!
You may eventually buy your dress on line but do please go and try on several styles in local shops or boutiques before you make the decision
When you start your hunt you may have a clear idea of what you think suits you and what your “style” is. It is important to be true to this but also you need to be open-minded to try on some styles outside the box – you may be surprised!
We all have a budget. It is honestly not a good idea to try on dresses that are way above your budget just for fun. This will waste a lot of your time and even worse – you may be tempted to go over your budget and that will throw out all your plans.
You may be that lucky girl who finds the perfect dress in the first shop you go into. It may be the right one but please try on more dresses in that shop and in others. You may just have been carried away by that first brilliant look.
You need to have decided your venue, the time of year and the type of wedding ceremony and celebrations before you jump into choosing a dress. Even the most amazing dress can look all wrong in the wrong situation. On the other hand, don’t leave it too late. If you are getting married in the spring or summer, shops are very busy and take several months for fittings and alterations so allow at the very least 6 months unless you have a handy aunt or mother who can do the alterations for you.
We certainly wouldn’t recommend you going alone to try on dresses but don’t turn it into a crowd activity! One or two people who you trust to give you honest feedback is ideal – and preferably two people with different styles so you hear more than one opinion. But don’t choose a dress to please them, or your mother, or anyone but yourself. This is your occasion so be selfish!
And finally! Please don’t buy a dress that is too small for you because you are going to lose weight. That may happen but it may not. No dress looks good if you are squeezed into it. It is MUCH easier to take a dress in than to try and let it out. All that matters is that the dress fits you and that you absolutely love it.
