I’d say the wedding dress is the most important decision in your wedding planning. Of course, your DJ is important too, and I wouldn’t choose lightly on that topic, but the dress? Come on.
Long after the music is over, the food is forgotten, and you’re looking down the road toward your ten year anniversary, pictures of you in your dress will still hang on the walls in your house.
I’ve been married almost twenty-three years and I still love my wedding photos. (Dave was my DJ. I hit my DJ and my dress out of the park. Oh, and the groom too. Wink.)
Glamour wrote a great piece on the do’s and don’ts of choosing a wedding dress. They suggest scheduling your appointment early in the day. They claim it’s because the store is slower in the morning and you’ll get more attention. I say, by the end of the day you may have had one too many chocolate croissants. You might be feeling a little full to try on dresses.
Stay away from what’s trendy now. Glamour suggests a combination of traditional with modern elements. My own mother made the mistake of buying the trend in 1968. She still complains, I mean, talks about it.
Try on as many dresses as you can. No matter what your maid of honor says. When my sister was getting married she brought every darn dress in the shop into that fitting room. I was very excited for her and thrilled to be with her for the big moment of choosing a dress. For the first fifty dresses. She came out of the dressing room again and again. Nothing seemed to be working. My hypoglycemia kicked in. I was starving, losing focus, getting light-headed, and a little cranky. She had one dress left. A part of me wanted to say, “just skip the last one. This isn’t working out today.” She tried that last dress on. She was stunning. She found the perfect dress. Glamour knows what they’re talking about.
I’d like to add, pay attention to the price. You don’t have to take out a loan to look amazing in your dress. You’re only going to wear it for a few hours, and then it will spend the rest of your life preserved in a cardboard box in your attic. And no, your daughter will not want to wear it when she gets married. I wouldn’t have wanted to wear my mother’s 1968 dress. Not that I could have. She burned it.
We love hearing from you! What does your dream dress look like? If you’ve been married a while, would you pick the same dress again?
