How to Shop for Your Gown
Some ideas from brides who have done it to make your shopping fun and productive!

Wendy Henderson, of Columbus Ohio, has some advice she learned the hard way. "Never shop for your dress on Saturday. The good shops are so crowded there will be a line for the dressing room. If you go during the week, you will get faster service and personal attention. Also, some of the shops with the best gowns and service are so in demand that they often require an appointment, so call ahead."

Grace Sterling of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, talks about bridal shops. I started shopping a year-and-a-half before my wedding and I can't believe how many shops and how many cities I visited. Eventually, I came to prefer the smaller shops with a cozier atmosphere, a personal fitting room, and sales clerks who knew their stuff and weren't afraid to tell me what to do. I thought I knew something about bridal gowns from all the magazines I had read. Boy was I wrong! A very knowledgable and helpful clerk in a small shop in Cincinnati cheerfully set me straight. My advice is this: seek a shop with qualified sales personnel who are experienced. How can you tell them from the others? Simple. They ask a lot of questions. They are sensitive to a bride's needs and interested in her as a person and in the success of her wedding. It's a simple as that."

Kelly Whittaker of Worthington, Ohio lists her seven golden rules of gown shopping:

1. Limit yourself to three shops in one day. If the sales clerks are thorough and do a good job, you won't have time to try more shops than that. You'll be too tired to make an informed decision.
2. Never try on more than six dresses at any one shop. If the salesclerk can't pick the dresses that look best on you, you're wasting your time. Try another shop.
3. Never take more than one person with you. Take your Mom or your best friend. Never take your sister--she will hate everything you like.
4. Always try on a veil and headpiece with your gown. It's the accessories that will really make the look. A gown without a veil looks unfinished.
5. If you have an experienced salesperson, listen to what she has to say. She's tried hundreds of dresses on hundreds of brides and knows what works.
6. If you have an inexperienced, or new salesperson who doesn't ask a lot of questions about you, your wedding season, time of day, number of bridesmaids, etc., try another shop.
7. You will know when you've found the right gown. Don't waste your time looking any further. You have too much to do before the big day. Go for it. Put down your deposit and get on with everything else that needs to be done.

Susan Cranston, of Dublin, Ohio, has some advice about shopping on a budget. "My Dad had very little to spend on my wedding. But I found a gorgeous gown that looked like a million dollars. Here's how I did it. I found a shop that sold samples, off-the-rack. Samples are gowns that brides have tried on and have been discontinued. Some of them had never even been tried on because the shop did buy-outs, buying discontinued inventory from the manufacturer. I found a two-thousand dollar gown for seven hundred dollars! Alterations added another one-hundred dollars to the price. The salesclerk explained that even gowns that are ordered have to be altered, since they can only be manufactured to the closest size of the bride. My bridesmaids couldn't believe I had such a beautiful and expensive gown! Of course, I told them my secret. Now I'm sharing it with everyone."

Ellen Weller of Columbus warns us about her Internet disaster. "Never, never order a gown over the Internet. I did and learned about it the hard way. What I didn't know was that most of these "discount" sites are operated out of someone's basement, not out of an honest store. The site indicated that all sales were final and I had to pay the full amount to order the gown. After I placed my order, the gown took two months longer than usual to arrive. When it finally arrived, just two weeks before the wedding, it was a complete mis-fit. My seamstress said she couldn't alter it because it was made so badly. She had worked on these gown before and told me that this one was a "copy" made by a company that specializes in copying designer gowns. I found out later that there are dozens of companies in the Far East that manufacture "copies" for the Internet market. They even copy the label! (Editors note: See Jim Helm Visions for more details.) I ended up buying another gown a week before my wedding from an authorized dealer for that manufacturer. I lost nearly eight-hundred dollars."

Alice Chalmers of Pickerington offers this advice: "I had seven bridesmaids and I made the mistake of taking all of them with me to order their dresses. What a circus! Everyone had their own opinion of what looked best. Finally, I had to ask--whose wedding is this anyway? Then they finally let me choose what I liked best. I would have made the same choice if I only took one or two of them with me. Believe me, you don't need or want all your bridesmaids with you when you choose their gowns.

Jean Foster of Granville sent us this thought: "I had five bridesmaids but I only ordered two of their gowns because the other three were out of town. I should have ordered all five, guessed at their sizes, and had them altered. I didn't know that dye lots could vary so much. When we ordered the last three they were a totally different shade. Make sure you get all the gowns at the same time. When we dyed the shoes, I made sure that all five pairs were dyed together. No more mis-matches!

Joan Walters of Gahanna writes: "I bought my entire set of six bridesmaids dresses from a store that sold them "off the rack". They did factory buy-outs and had a huge inventory of dresses on hand. The only problem was that I couldn't find a size for my largest bridesmaid, who needed a 32. The salesclerk had an ingenious solution. The dresses were so inexpensive (less than half the price than if I would have ordered them) that I bought seven dresses and used the extra to add gussets to the largest dress, making it fit my size 32 bridesmaid. I then took the total cost of the dresses and divided it by six, so no one had to pay extra. My bridesmaids thought it was a great idea and were so happy that I saved them so much money. I was really lucky!