How to Buy a Wedding dress FAQ
Buying a wedding dress is one of the most enjoyable parts of the build-up to your wedding day. Or, at least, it should be. That’s what we strive for, anyway: an enjoyable, exciting, energising experience that helps you find the perfect wedding dress for you. To help you understand the process and make it a pleasurable one, we’ve put together this handy list of frequently-asked questions for you.
When should I start looking for my wedding dress?
We recommend that you don’t start looking for your wedding dress any sooner than 12 months before your wedding day.
Twelve months gives you plenty of time to find the perfect dress and have it fitted and altered to your body.
How long does it take to buy a wedding dress?
You should allow a minimum of 10 months from the day you start looking to your wedding day. That is enough time for us to help you find the right dress and go through the process of fittings and alterations, so that the dress is perfect on your wedding day.
But don’t despair if your wedding day is less than 10 months away. There is always a solution.
For instance, if you have six months to go, and are able to make quick decisions, you will still be able to select a wedding dress from our collections, although depending on the design studio, there will be some restraints. Some have tighter deadlines for orders than others.
Shorter timeframes are possible, but you’ll have to be ready to make some concessions. We’ve even had a bride come in on a Tuesday and buy their wedding dress, and take it away with them, on a Friday. However, she was a unique bride.
So whatever your timeframe, there is always a solution. But the more time you allow (again up to a maximum of 12 months), the more choice you’ll have and the smoother the process will be.
When will my dress be delivered by the design studio?
Your dress will be delivered to us four to five months before your wedding day.
You’ll come into the shop to try it on within three weeks of it arriving with us, so that we can check it. We won’t sign off on a dress with the designer until we are happy with it.
Once you’ve tried it on and we’re happy with it, you take the dress away (it’s yours now), so you can start the process of final fittings and alterations with a seamstress/dressmaker.
Where do I find a seamstress for alterations?
We will recommend a seamstress/dressmaker. She has helped our brides for many, many years and we trust her to do a fabulous job for you. She’ll make sure your dress fits you perfectly on your wedding day.
Because we’ve worked with her for so long, we are also there to help with any last minute problems. You aren’t on your own once you’ve paid for the dress.
If you want to use someone else, that’s perfectly OK too, of course.
How long do alterations take to get the dress fitted perfectly?
You’ll start getting the dress altered six to eight weeks before your wedding day. The final fitting will be a week or 10 days before, and you’ll collect the dress steamed and pressed from the seamstress two days before your wedding day.
IMPORTANT: you might be doing extra exercise or perhaps a gentle weightloss programme before your wedding day. Aim to be at your target weight before you start your fittings with your seamstress. If you continue to lose weight after the first fitting, you’ll be paying extra for additional alterations later on. So plan to reach your target weight eight weeks before your wedding day, and maintain it from there.
When do I pay for my dress?
You pay 50% of the dress price when we place the order with the design studio.
The other 50% is due when you collect your dress once it has been delivered to us.
Do you have any tips for caring for my wedding dress?
Yes, we do.
You’ll find everything you need to know here: Bridal Dress Care: How to Look After Your Beautiful Wedding Dress.
What rules and guidance do you have about taking pictures during appointments to the shop?
We don’t encourage you to take pictures when you visit our boutique to try on dresses.
The reason is simple. You’ll be trying on show dresses which aren’t fitted perfectly to your body, like your final dress will be. So any pictures you take of yourself in the dress won’t truly reflect what the final dress will look like on you.
It would be like taking a picture halfway through having your hair done and then saying the haircut isn’t right.
But we do encourage you to come back and try a dress on again to make sure it’s the right one for you.
Do you have any other questions? Just drop us a line. We’re here to help.
Wedding Dress Countdown
12 months before your wedding day: start looking for your dress
6 months before your wedding day: order your wedding dress
4 to 5 months before your wedding day: collect your wedding dress from the shop
6 to 8 weeks before your wedding day: start your alterations with a seamstress
7 to 10 days before your wedding day: final fitting with your seamstress
2 days before your wedding day: collect your fitted, steamed and pressed dress from your seamstress
Wedding day: have the best day of your life so far