why you should come prepared to buy your wedding dress, even if it’s your first time shopping
so you are following the wedding day timeline and you’re shopping for your wedding dress a year and a half before the big day. you’ve got your crew with you, you’ve done your research and you're ready to find your dress. you go into your first store and already spot the dresses you saw online that you’ve been dying to try on. you start trying on and immediately fall in love with the first dress. you try others but nothing compares to that first one. you put it back on, the tears start falling and everyone agrees this is YOUR dress!
you are now celebrating with your group, happy you found it and cannot wait until you can marry your partner in this dress. your stylist comes over ready to take measurements and get the order started when you tell them that this is your dress but you’re not buying today. you have other appointments later this month + don’t want to lose out on your booking fees and will just call back in a couple months to order it.
as stylists who’ve been in the business for decades, we’ve seen this exact scenario play out a time or two. we always want to make sure you are happy and confident in your decision and will never discourage you against doing the things you need to do to make this happen. however, there are some big factors that come into play when it comes to the bridal world and ordering your dress.
the first one is discontinuations. designers can discontinue any style at any time. this means that the dress you fell in love with can no longer be ordered. so if the sample wasn’t a perfect fit or the right color, you will have to start your search all over again and end up settling for a different dress. you might be thinking, well what if I only needed a day to think about it not a couple of months. It’s the same risk. we have come in the next day with a message from the designer saying that this dress is discontinued effective immediately. this is why it is so important to get your order placed as soon as you know it's the one!
price increases are another common thing that happens in the bridal industry. it works the same as discontinued styles, where the designer can decide at any time to raise the cost of a dress, or all of them. we have seen this happen before, where a bride came back to “officially” say yes to the dress and ended up having to pay a couple hundred dollars more than if they ordered it the month before. this is something that stores do not have control over since designers set the prices for their dresses.
along with price increases, when you wait to buy your dress you may end up having to pay rush fees. designers set the ship times for their dresses depending on their busy seasons and can drastically change on a weekly basis. this means that waiting a couple months or even a couple weeks could mean the difference between your dress coming 4 months before your wedding and your dress coming 2 weeks before your wedding. now we are running into rush fees with the designer that can range from $150 to over $1,000 depending on the designer. you will most likely also run into rush fees with your seamstress.
these are just a few of the reasons why we encourage you to buy your wedding dress when you find it can not wait. it will save you not only time but elevate major stress and save you a lot of money! plus now that you have your dress secured, you can focus on other things like what your bridal party will wear and what decor will match you!
