Wedding Dress - Shopping Tips

I want to start this segment off saying that you can take as little or as much time as you need to find your wedding dress. Once you start shopping (or actually once you get engaged in general…) a lot of people start giving you their opinion whether you ask for it or not. As someone who was eager to learn more I always welcomed hearing about people’s experiences; sometimes it really helped, other times it really did not.

Picture this: you’ve been to 4 stores, and someone * shares * how they got their dress at the first store they went to, and bought the * first * dress they tried on. To some people they might think - good for you! For others, like me, I was. super. freaked. out. Like is there something wrong with me? Why can’t I FIND it? Why is it taking so long? Did I already try it on and I somehow missed it?

I wish I had someone to tell me to: relaaaxxxx and ENJOY this process because you’re only going to wear a wedding dress ONCE and if you love shopping (like I do) this is your time to soak is all in. One thing that I did and really loved, was I made my first dress shopping experience really special. I booked a shop downtown Toronto, made reservations for lunch afterwards, and really got to do a mini celebration like yay this is happening!!!

Some tips I learned along the way:

Experience:

1) Bring close people you trust
Because of COVID this basically happened on its own, but my rule was to bring whoever I was comfortable enough with to go shopping with in general. I don’t know about you but when I go shopping it’s basically like a sport, and as much as I love it by the end of it I am super cranky, which brings me to my next point,,,

2) Make sure you have snacks, water, or a reservation at a restaurant
The appointments are at LEAST an hour long, but then you have to factor in actually getting there. Then you’re going in and out of all these heave dresses, and by the end of it you’re exhausted. I preferred to make it fun and book a reservation somewhere close by to talk about the dresses, but at the very least bring some water and a snack.

3) Look up the route beforehand/where parking is available
Self explanatory but I cannot tell you how many times we were ok for time but then realize there was no parking and had to find something on the street and it cut it close.

4) Shop similarly to how you would usually
Ok so what I mean by this is that some people like to online shop, some like to scour the racks, some like to try a million things on. I actually found wedding dress shopping to be the same. For me I like to look on the internet to find the EXACT thing I am looking for, and then I have to try it on whether it be in stores or ordering it online. My wedding dress was no different, I literally found a picture online and was like … this. I tried it on and was like ok done, let’s buy it.

So that actually goes into my next point.

Actually Dress Finding:

4) Find the designers you like and the stores they’re at
There are so many designers I didn’t even know HOW to find it (I always go to goggle), but what I ended up doing is looking up stores (see my previous blog post), and then seeing the selection of designers that they had and looking through their collections. I would have a couple of dresses in mind to try on when going so I had an idea of what I wanted and so did the people working there.

5) Wear dark coloured underwear
Seems weird but let me explain. SO many dresses are SHEER. Like it’s a style right now to have the dress be “unlined” which basically means .. show your butt down the isle. I’m only mildly exaggerating. What I would do is wear dark underwear to gauge how sheer the dress is and compare between the dresses that I had already tried on. Now if you fall in love with a sheer gown from my understanding there are measures that can be taken to help with that, but this is helpful to know now and not when you pay for it and are trying it on.

6) Do things on your timeline, and do not let any salespeople make you feel rushed (unless re: timeline above and you’re off of it)
At the end of the day, anyone who works at a store… works at a store, and would like to make a sale. There are some timelines to keep in mine (re: previous blog post) but otherwise don’t let anyone make you feel rushed. There is nothing wrong with taking time to think about it, or going home to discuss financial because it is a big purchase and decision. Remember: a lot of stores have the same designers and you can just as easily go somewhere else that carries the dress if you don’t feel 100000% confident in the store you’re buying from.

I hope that helps fellow bride besties!!!