When little girls spend their mathematics classes daydreaming of weddings ( instead winning the World Series — not to say you can’t do both ), what do they dream of first? The perfect marriage dress, naturally : a gown in white satin with a bustle and sweeping train, the ideal elaborations, and the perfect shoes.
Many brides are fortunate. They may search low and high, facing chilly dept shops and forceful bridal shops, but eventually they come face-to-face with The One. They know this is The One because they start crying, or their ma or friends all start crying instantly. All of the planning … the tone, the tone, the right kind of venues …. It all springs to life.
Other brides are not as lucky. They’ve searched just as hard, working their way thru shops across three or four states, but they have not found The One. Instead, they’ve found 3 or 4 Contenders, all of which are serviceable and nice, but not earth-shattering sufficient to tell them that now is unquestionably time to stop the looking and get on with the planning. These brides have it harder.
Even if you are the 1st sort of bride, purchasing the dress is sort of a momentous decision that you run a risk of falling into that wallet-skinning category called the Two-Dress Bride. Here are some tips for picking the perfect dress and avoiding that horrible fate.
1. Bring the entourage, but don’t buy. It is fun and helpful to bring your mum, buddies or sisters on the dress-shopping expedition. It gives you a buffer against an overbearing sales staff, and it’s entertaining to see whether your impressions of perfection are shared by your family, not to say how they’ll love being an element of such a critical call. But whatever how enthusiastic everyone gets over a certain dress, don’t buy in the heat of the moment. Give yourself time to rethink and buy with a cool head later, alone. The overwhelming majority of dresses are non-returnable, so when you have purchased it, you have purchased it.
2. Don’t buy too early unless you may. Bridal robes can take 4 to ten months to come from the manufacturer, but there isn’t any reason to buy over a year previously, unless your chosen style is going to be abandoned. Give yourself some time to sit on your call. After you pick a gown, you’ll see a hundred others almost like it. You can become a walking encyclopedia on that style of gown. All the better if you have room to choose.
3. If you have acquired “The One,” stop shopping. Any more window-shopping at about that point will only lead you down the road toward the dull land of Two-Dress Brides. What you need to do instead is remember that happy sense of having tried on The One. Go get The One out of the closet, put it on and stand before the mirror. You’ll remember exactly why it’s The One.
4. If you’ve bought “The One” and can’t stop shopping, get a second opinion. Show your first and 2nd selections to other brides. Be truthful — tell them you’ve already remortgaged your apartment for the first dress, but you suspect this 2nd dress could be It. They are going to be truthful, too — the 1st one was better. You’ll feel reassured.
5. Don’t tell yourself “I’ll sell the old dress and select a new one.” This old saw of the Two-Dress Bride just will not work. You will never get more than a fraction of what you paid for your first dress if you bought it new.
6. Don’t be scared to aim high — regardless of what your budget. Some brides knew from the start they wanted a designer label, but life just did not cooperate by making them heiresses. Yet all is not lost if you’re willing to buy courageously. At any given moment, a better-heeled bride is selling her once-used St. Pucchi or Ulla-Maija on eBay. She paid thousands on thousands, but you, smart shopper, will pay half that or less. To take this road, you must shop earlier than other brides so you’ll have a choice of gowns.
7. Shop online, but never send a check. Bridal robe companies occasionally have a method of disappearing overnight. No matter what the proprietor tells you, never make a purchase as large as a wedding gown without the chargeback protection of a credit card. If they assert they cannot take plastic, move on.
8. Don’t hold out forever for The One. Some brides never find The One. What they do find is some dresses they look pretty in. If you are this bride, try beginning your planning from the theme rather than the dress. You’ll probably eventually get sick to death of dress shopping. When that happens, “good enough” actually will be acceptable. Focus on other facets of the wedding that mean a lot to you, like the venue, the food, or the inescapable devotion of your soon-to-be husband.
Looking for more ideas to help you choose the perfect wedding gown? Visit yourweddinggowns.com to read about various types of bridal dresses, you may also want to take a look at wedding dresses.
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