The love of your life just popped the question… YAY! You’ve been celebrating that magical moment for a little bit, and now reality is starting to set in - it’s time to plan a wedding! There are so many things to think through and details to decide on, but one thing at a time.
Today, we are focusing on the seemingly daunting task of finding a wedding dress. Where to even begin? Let me save you some time (& stress) and share with you what I have learned about this process. I’ve gathered the four most important things you need to think through before you start your search so that the process of finding your dream dress goes as smoothly as possible and is actually a blast for you that you’ll cherish forever. So…Here we go!
1. What is the vision (or “vibe”) of my wedding?
Who are you and your fiancé as a couple? Are you guys super chill and relaxed? Do you love dressing up and going out on a typical Saturday night? Do you love to dance and party? Do you guys have country roots and enjoy that type of lifestyle?
Thinking through who you guys are as a couple can help lead to the vision or vibe that you want your wedding to be. Maybe you guys are really just focused on each other and want a smaller, intimate, and romantic wedding in your backyard with just a few others to celebrate with. Or maybe you guys love to entertain and you want a very formal, elegant wedding possibly in a ballroom. Maybe you guys want to have a big party in a rustic barn and just have a ton of fun with all of your friends and family. There are endless visions, but I promise you that as soon as you nail down exactly how you want the feel of your wedding day to be, every other wedding detail including what type of wedding dress you want will become clear to you.
Here are some more examples of different wedding visions/vibes you could have: boho, relaxed, casual, romantic, whimsical, rustic, elegant, classy, formal, vintage, intimate, unique, modern (your wedding vision could also be a combination of these words).
2. What are your top priority items for your wedding?
Communicate with your fiancé what the most important things are to you both for your wedding day. Is that the venue, flowers, food, dress, photographer? Choosing your top 3 priority things allows you to not only be a little more go-with-the-flow on your less-prioritized details, but it also tells you where you should spend more of your wedding budget. If your dress isn’t a priority item, set an amount of money that you don’t want to exceed after you have planned how much you want to spend on your priority items. If the dress is one of your top priorities for the day, allow yourself to have some wiggle room spending a little more money so that you can spend less on something that is less important to you.
3. Decide who the people are that you NEED to be there with you to purchase a dress, and invite ONLY these people.
Okay… this is a big one, guys! It can be so tempting to invite mom, grandma, future mother-in-law, all your sisters, all your friends, and all your friends’ friends ;-) But seriously, go here with me for a second… wedding dress shopping is incredible, but inviting everyone to this experience just for the fun of it has the potential to make it the complete opposite. You need the people who are, first of all, there to support you and what you want above anything else.
These people will be honest and tell you how they feel while simultaneously encouraging you to choose the dress that YOU love the most and that you feel the most you in.
Do NOT invite the people who will make you feel anything negative, who will blurt out their opinions before you even get a chance to express how you feel about a dress, or who will pressure you to try on a bunch of styles that you know you do not want. These people are just excited for you, of course, and they mean well, but this is not the time to invite them. The perfect time to invite these people, though, is when your dress is ready to pick up from the bridal shop and you get to try it on again in the shop in a size that actually fits you! When you are shopping and searching for the perfect dress though, make sure to only invite the people you NEED with you to say yes.
4. Book your wedding date (or at least have a pretty good idea of when it will be).
Booking your wedding date before you start shopping for a dress makes the process a lot easier for a few reasons.
Booking your wedding date before you start shopping for a dress makes the process a lot easier for a few reasons. First of all, most bridal shops custom order your wedding dress from designers. This means that ordering a dress can take months to actually be created for you and delivered. Knowing exactly how long you have to order a dress will save you a lot of stress when you are shopping. Secondly, knowing what season your wedding is in/what the weather could be like can help you tons when you are shopping! If your wedding is in the fall or winter, you might want long sleeves or thicker material. If your wedding is in the summer, you might want something lighter with fewer layers in the skirt. And lastly, when you book your official wedding date, this also means that you probably have chosen your venue. Being able to really imagine yourself walking down the aisle and enjoying your wedding at your specific venue can help you choose what dress feels the most right for you.
BONUS!! Now you can schedule your appointment with Evermore and find your DREAM DRESS!
We love helping brides throughout this process, you can find out more about how passionate we are about your wedding dress shopping experience here. Our schedule books up quickly and we want to make sure we can accommodate you and your party, schedule your appointment here!
XO Madison