Here I am, exactly a year ago today, about to go for a coffee before the first Wedding Dress Shopping appointment of our day. Looking at this photo, I look so happy and ready to go shopping and it makes me reflect about actually what I was thinking internally at the time. For me, unlike many women, I had actually been dreading the moment, I had to go Wedding Dress shopping. Not because I wasn’t excited to be getting married, but because, its a moment, that I have thought of many times since my mum died, as a moment (amongst many!) that would be a painful reminder, that she was not here. At the time, this photo was taken, I was happy, because although I felt pain from my mum not being present, I had my Auntie with me, by my side, who has been like a mum to me, ever since my mum passed and to be sickly annoying, I really am about to marry the love of my life! For which I feel incredibly grateful.
What to do before going Wedding Dress shopping?
1. Inspiration
The fun part! Now that you are engaged, you get to buy all of those forbidden magazines! Yes, ‘those’ magazines, the ones you wouldn’t dream buying (if your superstitious like me) in case you brought one and then you ended up cursed, to the end of time, never to be married! Spend time getting lots of inspiration for your wedding and the types of wedding dresses you would like to try.
For me, I think it helps, if you have decided on the ‘type of wedding’ you are going to have and have booked the venue. As from there, you will have decided on the ‘style’ of your wedding and will have this in the back of your mind when you are going shopping and choosing your dress. For example, if you are planning to have a rustic woodland wedding, wearing heels and a fitted structured wedding dress may not go along with your theme and/or may be uncomfortable for you during your day.
In addition, to using magazines for inspiration, I honestly found the best and most useful sources of inspiration were Instagram and Pintrest. We are lucky to live in a world where we literally have millions of pictures in the palm of our hands, through our mobile devices, and can find inspiration from not only brands, but from ‘real life’ people too, along with wedding photographers, venues and all the other beautiful suppliers with their social media pages.
I found it helpful to ‘save’ or ‘pin’ any pictures I liked that I saw on Instagram/Pintrest, without much thinking and then after a few days of searching, when looking back at pictures, I slowly began to see a theme appear of not just the ‘type’ of wedding dresses I liked, but also in the theme of wedding I wanted to have also.
2. Know who you are
Yes, I know, this may seem a strange thing to think about or to say in the topic of Wedding Dress shopping but it is actually something, that I found myself thinking about a lot, as and when I began trying on Wedding dresses. As I tried on Wedding dresses, it started to become apparent, that certain dresses looked better on me, due to my body shape. I also started to see that the dresses that I liked and felt comfortable in, were dresses, that reflected my personality and general dress sense overall. It doesn’t mean that I chose a dress that stuck completely to my character, I may or may not have added a curveball (not wanting to give too much away about my dress, as I am set to get married this year). However, I found that I wanted to choose a dress that represented me as a person rather than following the current trend. After all, in years to come, you will look back at your wedding pictures and I wanted to ensure that when looking back, that the pictures were not ‘trend’ focused but reflected me and my husband at that time.
3. The Day Before…
The day before you Wedding Dress shopping, I think it is useful to spend 20 minutes of your time thinking about the below list of items, so you feel prepared to embark on your big day 🙂
- What clothing styles normally fit your body shape best?
- What would you like your wedding dress to say about you on your wedding day?
- How you can reflect your personality in a dress?
- How do you wish what your pictures to look back, when you look back on them in years to come?
- What is the overall style/theme of you Wedding day and Venue?
The Wedding Dress Shopping Experience
It may be that you end up going Wedding dress shopping more than once, but I think its important for every woman to have ‘that’, coming of age, right of passage, ‘Wedding Dress Shopping Experience’. Where you take your closest family/friends to have a day out, trying on wedding dresses, drinking champagne, eating out for lunch, having fun and making memories that will last you a lifetime. After all, this moment only comes by, once in life, so why not celebrate this moment and truly make it one to remember.
4. Where to go?
Living close to London, for me this was a no-brainer. To make a good day of it, I chose to visit three Dress shops and broke up the shops we had to visit with either a coffee, lunch or drink break before, to truly make it a day to remember.
Wedding Dress Shop 1
After speaking to several friends and getting their wedding dress shop recommendations. The first shop I chose to book and visit was a popular wedding dress shop, which had a good cross section of different wedding dress styles. The shop itself did not stock the majority of brands that I was interested in, however, I chose to visit this shop first, because it gave me the chance to try on lots of different styles of dresses which were of good quality for each style. Here at my first shop, I was able to try, the ‘princess’, ‘fishtail’, ‘lace’, ‘embellished’ dress and so on, allowing me to get a good feel of not only the dress styles I liked, but also the styles that looked best on me.
Although I didn’t buy my dress from this shop, the Shop Assistant was caring and thoughtful and interestingly, gave me the best advice of the day, which was “Today, you will visit other wedding dress shops and they may try to pressure you into buying a dress there and then, however, never feel pressured, you are in no rush and this is a dress that you will wear for the one day of your life which will never happen again (god willing), therefore, take your time and consider your choices – you are in no rush and deep down there is no need to buy a dress until at least 6-8 months before”.
Wedding Dress Shop 2
I chose to visit a slightly more expensive Wedding dress shop. The shop was recommended by a friend who had got married 10 years before who assured me it was in my price budget! However, safe to say, when I visited, none of the dresses had ‘price tags’ and the Assistant didn’t tell me the prices of the dresses until the end! Which we all know what that means girls… the prices were insane! 🙂
However, that aside, it honestly was my my best Wedding Dress experience to date, from start to finish! What I loved about this wedding dress shop, was they sat you down first with a glass of champagne and asked you about – your venue and your plans, your future husband, how you met, what you like to do together – for them to then get a good sense of what your relationship is like and the overall type of wedding you are trying to create for your day. You are then asked to walk around and choose 3 dresses you like and the Assistant also chooses dresses they think will work best for you and you try them on.
It was in this wedding dress shop that I finally found ‘my style’ and decided on the type of dress that I wanted to get married in, which was slightly different to the dresses that I had saved or pinned on my social media accounts.
The overall experience was amazing and even if these shops are a little out of your price range, I would recommend visiting at least one, even if it is just for the experience. You never know, you may be able to make room in your budget for the dress, if you fall in love with one, by cutting back on another area of your wedding budget.
Wedding Dress Shop 3
The last Wedding dress shop I chose to visit was a shop, which stocked both the brands and the exact dresses I had fell in love with on social media. I left this shop to last, as I wanted to ensure my eyes were fully open for the first two wedding dress shops I went to and not be blinded by what I had already fell in love with. Ironically, my shopping experience in this shop, was the worst of them all, as it was very rushed and the overall experience was not very personal. However, I did get to try on all the dresses I wanted. Ironically and you begin to learn this throughout your wedding dress experience, although, I loved these dresses in the pictures, in real life and on me they didn’t look the same and were not quite in line with the dress styles I had come to love throughout the day.
5. Who to take?
The last piece of the puzzle. As I said before this is an iconic day in your life and one which you will never truly experience in the same way again. I think it is the questions of ‘who to take with you’ and ‘how many people’, is very much a personal decision and different for everyone. That said, its good to bear in mind that some Bridal shops have a maximum guest number of 2 people, per Bride so that the overall experience goes as smoothly as possible and the shop does not become too full.
On this point, my only bit of advice, would be to choose to take someone, you love, who would want to be there to give you the best day and experience possible. Choose a person who will come with no agenda, will be sensitive to your feelings and will not overpower you with their judgement and thoughts on the dresses. You want to have a person/people there that will allow you to ‘blossom’ to help you discover what you like and make you feel comfortable/good whilst giving you sensitive self-aware feedback on the dresses that you are trying on, so that you can truly make the best decision for you.
My lasting thoughts…
Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy! Make the day special, take persons who are special to you and will make you feel special. Relish/embrace the feeling and knowledge, that this is one more step closer towards you reaching your fairytale moment.
“Selecting a wedding dress is more than just a fitting… its a process – a memory in the making”
– Olivelli Cape Town