No luck with finding your perfect wedding dress?
Submitted: 15 December, 2007
Author: Mada Haputfleisch
Below are a few guidelines on how to buy your wedding dress
1. Set up a budget
Nowadays, buying a wedding gown offers you an abundance of choices. Know your budget and don’t try on wedding dresses that are out of your budget as you will only let yourself down as well as increasing the anxiety of your decision.
2. Decide on what style you want
The internet offers a lot of ideas as to the type of dress that you envisage. Take into account the location and the time of the ceremony, and make certain your dress corresponds well with your other plans.
3. Start as early as possible
Once the wedding date is set, start the hunt for your perfect wedding dress as soon as you can.
4. Find and compare bridal salons
Find and compare bridal salons to ensure that you don’t overpay for your wedding dress.
5. Make appointments
Be sure to set up a meeting with the bridal shops that you are interested in and discuss your ideal wedding dress with their designer as she too will have inspiration in what you are looking for. Listen to her suggestions and/or recommendations.
6. Have your measurements taken
Do not do the measurements yourself. Go to your preferred bridal boutique and let them take them for you. This will ensure precise measurements that will lead to a perfect fit.
7. Look at fabric swatches
It is important that you know and feel the texture and the actual colour of the fabric that will become your wedding dress. Swatches will be helpful in making your decision for a gown much easier.
8. Consider the rear view design of the gown
Your guests will be spending a lot of time looking at your back as the ceremony takes place, so when looking through designs, take into account the design of the back of your dress should be as flattering as the front of it.
9. Bring a friend along
She can give you her honest opinion as to whether the style and design of your choice is perfect or whether alterations need to be done, and also how the dress looks like at different angles.
10. Consider your comfort
You will be wearing the gown for at least eight hours so it is important that your dress should feel comfortable. When trying it on, bend over, sit down, stand up, walk and dance to make sure that you can move with ease.
11. Deposit payment
There is usually a deposit of approximately 20%. This is normally required when ordering your dress.
12. Ask for a receipt
Once you have decided on your perfect wedding dress and paid your deposit, then ask for a receipt indicating the amount of the deposit paid, the amount outstanding, the full description of the dress, the due date and the delivery date.
13. Relax and enjoy
Allow the team at the bridal salon to pamper you in every way. Enjoy the thrill and the excitement of shopping for your wedding gown and of the thought that you will soon be marrying the person that you love.
Be cautious of:
1. Anybody who would insist on shipping your wedding gown to you
You have very little come back or even none at all, should anything go wrong. The price that you will be paying for alterations may be more than the discount that was given to you when they sent you your wedding dress.
2. A bridal shop that indicates or suggests that you should “do the footwork”
It is best that you shop somewhere else, so avoid these bridal shops or stores – you shouldn't be doing the footwork, the team at your chosen bridal shop should be doing that for you!
3. A bridal shop that requests full payment for your dress before the necessary work is done
It is always much safer that you order or buy your wedding dress from the same bridal shop that you chose it from. There are many full service bridal stores that will cater to all your needs and your satisfaction is guaranteed.
Your wedding dress is the most important part of your wedding day. Don’t take chances with it.
