How to Pick Your Wedding Dress

When I entered into the process of wedding planning almost 2 years ago, I was overwhelmed by all the decisions I had to make. Flowers, food, bridal party, music, venue, the list went on and on. One decision though was an easy one for me and, surprisingly, it was choosing my wedding dress. I found and purchased my dress all in one day! So if you are in the throes of wedding planning and up to your eyeballs in invitation designs and cake samples, let me share a few tips with you that I hope will simplify one of your biggest decisions – choosing your wedding dress.

1. Know what you want

This tip is what sped my dress search along and helped my pick out my dress in one day. When you enter a dress store, you will definitely be overwhelmed by all the choices. Do you want an A-line or sheath dress? Sweetheart or square neckline? White or ivory? So many choices, but you can knock out a few if you spend some time looking at wedding dresses before shopping.

Months before I was even engaged, I was perusing bridal sites and Pinterest for my ideal wedding dress. I also picked up a David’s Bridal catalog after my engagement and picked out which dresses I wanted to try on in the store. By the time my dress shopping day rolled around, I already knew that I wanted a simple A-line lace dress and was able to bypass about 75% of the other dress options in the store. You don’t have to be as specific as I was, but having a general idea of what you envision your dress to be will help so much! Here are a few of the dresses I had found that helped me select my style of dress.

2. Don’t take an entourage

While I was planning my wedding I loved watching Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. One thing about that show that I couldn’t understand though was why brides would bring their mom, aunt, second cousin, long-lost best friend, and anyone else they could think of to try on wedding dresses. Whenever a bride brought her large entourage it seemed like she always ended up in tears because she couldn’t get everyone to agree on a dress. So my advice,thanks to TLC, is to leave the entourage at home!

Your wedding dress should reflect your personality and tastes, not everyone else’s. Take just a couple close friends or family members with you and cut out the drama (because we all know weddings bring enough drama already!). My mom and dad went dress shopping with me and it was perfect. They both knew me way better than any of my friends and helped me find my perfect dress. Oh, and I didn’t end up in tears! 🙂

3. Make your dress one of your first purchases

After I bought my dress I was so glad that I had bought it early in my wedding planning process. I didn’t realize it until after my purchase, but my dress really influenced some of my other major decisions. For example, I had been looking at bridesmaid dresses before I bought my dress and thought I had picked out which ones I wanted my girls to get. Then, after choosing my dress, I realized that the style of the bridesmaid dresses would totally clash with the style of my dress. I picked a wedding dress that was more formal than I originally thought it would be and therefore, I had to keep my wedding more formal to go with my dress. To narrow down your choices on things like flowers and bridal party attire, pick your dress first and let the style of it influence the rest of your wedding “look.”

I hope these tips have been helpful! I loved my dress (which I purchased from David’s Bridal) and I loved my experience of shopping for it! To wrap up, here a few pictures from my wedding day.