Wedding Dress: Before You Buy

Wedding dresses are like elusive godmothers: You wish they had found you sooner, and waved their wands more frequently.

Finding the right dress means never, ever – I mean for real NEVER – buying it at the first store. Don’t. There’s a reason bridal gown stores offer you 20% discounts if you buy the dress on your first day, and I will tell you why.

Most bridal gown stores are not your best friend; they are not trying to help you find the perfect gown (and they probably are secretly thinking you look fat in that behind your back): They are looking to make a sale off of a market that is (usually) solely based on emotional shopping. You will probably get emotional when you try on your first gown. I did, because I was convinced I would never look good in a princess-y white gown; when I put on the right one, I felt really good, and feel good hormones can definitely block some of the more logical parts of my brain (the brain parts saying, “Oh damn, don’t pay over your budget”).

The reason the bridal store you are at is offering you 20% off your gown if you buy it on your first day is because they’ve marked the gown up 100%. If you walk out of that store without buying it, you have the opportunity to research it and figure out its normal retailer price, and then they’ve completely lost their sale. This happened to me personally, and it was ridiculous because I was very honest and told the store upfront that I was visiting because I liked the gown and heard they were offering a discount. They reassured me that yes, they were offering the discount for the gown. I drove three hours out to this store with the idea that I wouldn’t need alterations because I could get the size right enough. Once I got there, they showed me – with huge smiles – the special price I would pay for the gown with their 20% discount plus another discount on top. Their price: $800 more than what it was going for anywhere else (this was their “discounted” price). After I told them I was confused because the gown was part of this special trunk show and its price was X, they admitted that “Oh, sorry, we were giving you the floor price.” And then marked it to only $200 more than it was going everywhere else. I was able to finally get them to honor their original discounts for the dress at its actual price (or rather my sister was able to get them to honor the discount off the actual retail price because I was sitting trying not to burn things with my eyes between tears), but I left without buying the dress from their store. I was just too shocked that they could mark it up so high when it was so obviously being sold for less in the rest of the universe. I looked sadly at the girl nearby trying on gowns and drinking champagne; she was about to spend 3x what her dress was worth.

So I’m telling you: Never, ever, buy the gown at the first store. I ended up buying my dress at a small bridal gown store in my hometown. It’s family owned and the seamstress/owner is honest and pointed. I told her that I had turned down buying the dress for the discounted price because the store was just awful and asked if there was anything she could do to help me out. She couldn’t offer me the same discount, but it is completely worth using her store because she honored the dress at its trunk show price, and she will be a blessing to work with – especially compared to the other store.

Which brings me to my next advice, and what the following posts will pretty much reiterate in some form: Listen to what your friends say. My coworker got her gown at the same store I am, and I will recommend this store to anyone in my area. There’s usually a good reason people keep using the same place! Ask around and try out the stores and vendors that friends and family have used before jumping into the unknown; might save you a lot of extra work. (Would’ve saved me a lot of, “No Alyssa, you can’t do that; it’s illegal to stab someone.” Psh. Whatever.)