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Ordering your Wedding Gown
8 Months Before your Wedding: Ordering your Wedding Gown
For most brides, the wedding gown is the dress that makes you look and feel like a princess on your big day. You want to have the best wedding dress and will not settle for anything less. The only way you will get the dress of your dreams is by going for wedding gown shopping. You need to be well prepared so you can get the best results.
Here are some tips to help you during your wedding dress shopping.
Start Shopping Early, but not too Early
For an ideal bride, the search for a wedding dress usually begins 8 - 10 months before the wedding date. No matter how busy you are, you need to have your gown 6 months before the wedding. A lot goes into a wedding dress. Most dresses have to be resized and have special features added upon request which is why the dress needs to be ordered early enough. Bridal gowns are made to order, which means they are sized and made specifically to the customer’s details, the fabric is specially ordered and paid for at your local boutique.
On the other hand, starting the search too early can overload you with too many options and affect your judgment. Also, bridal gowns come in seasons, just like winter clothes or summer clothes, wedding dates normally come in October or April. Gowns are shown to buyers a year before they will be available in the stores for purchase. Being patient in your bridal gown shopping allows you to have the flexibility to peek into last season’s style and also see what next year’s style will look like.
Bring your Friends
Having a small group of supportive friends and family members tag along with you while you shop for bridal gowns will keep the process fun and honest. But bringing the right amount of friends with you in your entourage is very important. Remember the "too many cooks in the kitchen” predicament and too few will miss out on important perspectives. Also, too many ideas will confuse you and too little will not give you enough feedback. Be honest with yourself when you choose who is coming: you want to bring people who you are the most comfortable around but will also give you honest feedback – “yes-men” are never helpful and people who are too critical may make you feel insecure. It will be helpful if some of the people you invite know your personal style and are fashionable themselves.
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Stay Within Your Budget
Always have a plan and a budget when going shopping for your wedding dress. You can be flexible if your heart is set on a specific dress but that does not mean that you overspend. Your dress should not exceed the number in your budget. If you are not sure about what that number should be, you can ask yourself, how much your dream dress would cost for it to become a dress that is not for you? If you are shopping for accessories at the same time, this also applies. There is no rush to buying the accessories, although, you want to keep the look consistent. Give yourself time to think about all the options: accessories, alteration fees, the after-party look, the veil and post-wedding dry cleaning all come with their own price-tag.
If you can’t handle going custom - don’t
Custom gowns are not for everyone. They require you to have a specific vision that you entrust with your designer. The process is extensive and requires patience, knowing that you may not see the final product but weeks or even days before your wedding. Brides that may be indecisive in their vision, restless to receive their dress, or not fully committed to the ability of you and the designer to create a dress that represents you, may not be best suited for a custom dress – and that’s totally fine, not many are.
Demonstrate your Look in the Key Dresses
Beginning your bridal gown campaign at this stage will prevent oversaturation, however, there comes a time when you see yourself walking down the aisle in a multitude of gowns. Brides who try on too many dresses start to forget the styles, designs, and specifics that attracted their attention in the first place. The process becomes addictive and you may begin to disregard the gowns that should have been (and eventually will become) your wedding gown. Trying on too many styles could ultimately fill your head with romanticized scopes of your dress as you remember it, leading to subsequent alterations after you’ve ordered your gown. Another problem with observing too many dresses is that you become numb to the style, potentially causing you to miss out on the one. If you have a particular style that reflects your personality, stick to it.
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