Weddingbee Blog

As I said in my last post, I am certainly no expert when it comes to formal wear, and I would be lying if I said, after my first visit to a dress store, I wasn’t a little freaked out.

I had only been engaged a few weeks when I found myself in a boutique in New York City, and, for some reason, all of the dresses I looked at seemed to resemble sparkly puffy balloon curtains they were so beaded and inflated. Not wanting to look like a disco-era Von Trapp girl, I ended up fleeing the store, only regrouping a few months later to try again on my Canadian home turf. (Sorry lookieloos, no pictures from that trip, I’m afraid.)

Anyway, I’m still not sure what I’m doing dress-wise (although a seamstress friend of ours has offered to make my dress for a very reasonable price, so being a budget bride, I’m seriously considering that), but these experiences taught me a couple of things which I hope might spare some of your other ladies grief when you go on your respective dress hunts.

Therefore, I present to you, Miss Hummingbird’s dress hunting trips for the uninitiated!

1) Bring a couple of people with you. This isn’t always possible, I know, but it’s good to have another set of eyes (that does not belong to your sales consultant) looking at the dresses with you and giving you an honest opinion.

2) Wear good underwear. If you go to a shop, at the very minimum, you will have a consultant helping you in and out of dresses and that last pair you keep in the bottom of your drawer to wear on laundry day is going to embarass the crap out of you if someone else sees it. In my case, I had three people witness me being pulled in and out of gowns so I was really happy I wore a decent pair.

3) Bring a strapless bra. A lot of places will have one you can borrow but you never know who has worn the thing before you (my friend wore “the community bra” and had an allergic reaction to someone else’s deodorant/perfume). Not to mention if it’s yours, you’ll no doubt get a better fit.

4) Shoes are a bonus. I brought a pair that was approximately the height I want my wedding shoes to be, so it was cool to see kind of an overall picture. It was a good way of exploring the way the dresses moved/the way I would move in the dress. You might love your crazy high shoes and a heavier dress, but consider what it will be like to move in that all day.

5) Do a sit test. I like the look of mermaid style dresses, but I’ve found that the whole sitting part of the evening is a big struggle for me in them, so that’s not something I want to deal with on my big day (plus can you imagine having to go to the washroom if you can’t sit down? What a nightmare!)

6) Don’t book a tonne of dress appointments in one day. Even though it sounds like nothing, climbing in and out of dresses is strangely tiring, and if you have half a dozen appointments, by the end of the day, not only you will forget what you saw where, but it is very possible you will murder someone. Limit yourself to two or three.

7) In the spirit of a homicide free shopping trip, one of the absolute best things to do is have a bag that is stocked with a hard candy and/or a bottle of plain water. It can help perk you up when you feel tired and it won’t get the dresses dirty.

Keep an open mind. Wedding dresses are incredibly different from your average dress and sometimes the way it looks on the hanger is deceptive. The dress I picked out as my favourite on the floor looked awful on me, whereas the beaded dress my lovely consultant Sheri picked out for me looked awesome, so you never know.

9) If you feel uncomfortable, leave. This is a huge purchase and the last thing you need is to feel bullied into putting down a deposit.

10) Bring your dress entourage out to lunch/dinner/drinks afterwards. Okay, you don’t have to do this, but I did and it was a fun way to say thank you to my friends for sacrificing their Saturday.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of off the top of my head, so I open the floor to the rest of the dress buying public. What did the rest of you ladies find helpful when you went dress shopping? What did you do or wish you’d done during your hunt?