How to Shop for a Wedding Dress, Part 2

We think that shopping for your wedding dress should be one the funnest, easiest parts of planning your wedding. Once you’ve mastered the three suggestions we have before shopping for your wedding gown, it’s time to think about what you want to wear on your big day. As we discussed, researching dress options online is a good way to familiarize yourself with the myraid options out there. But many of our brides wonder, how do I figure out what I want to wear?

I recently celebrated my five year wedding anniversary with a vow renewal ceremony. Mostly I wanted to wear a new dress, since my own wedding dress shopping experience wasn’t so great (but it did provide the catalyst for the Strut concept!). So when I went dress shopping at my Los Angeles area bridal store, I had some specific things in mind. To help you understand how to pick styles of dresses to try on and evaluate them, I thought it might be helpful to walk through my wedding dress shopping experience.

My shopping thought process (and dress evaluation) was this:

1. I should try on a beach-y wedding dress, since I’m doing my vow renewal on the beach! I also wanted something a bit unique. So I found this cool chiffon wedding gown with funky two tone embroidery and straps.

You can probably tell from my face that I didn’t care for it on. I loved the top, which features the illusion neckline, but I’m a bit too short to rock this gown, and I liked it better with a narrower skirt (more like a sheath). In the end, it was just ok.

2. I should try on a trendy wedding dress! In this case, I tried on a fitted lace mermaid with sparkle and an illusion neckline and it was in blush pink. Yep, pretty much every hot wedding dress trend rolled into one.

I loved the shape it gave me, and I thought it was really pretty, but it also felt too fancy for the low key beach event I had imagined. So it was not “the dress”.

3. I want to try a WOW wedding dress. So I tried on an Allure wedding dress that is one of the best selling gowns in my Long Beach store (it’s also available in our Tempe bridal store). When brides put it on, they are speechless. It’s a show-stopper. I wanted to experience a wow wedding dress.

You can probably tell from my face that I loved this dress. I thought it made my waist look tiny. I loved the blush/champagne color. I loved the sparkle on the illusion neckline. It made me speechless. And it was one of the top two vote getters on Facebook (yep, I let our awesome Facebook fans vote on the dress!).

4. I let my stylist pick a dress for me. I asked Evette what she thought I should wear and she pulled a gown. It was a fitted organza gown with ruffled bottom.

Yep, this the other top contended. I don’t think Evette knew that this gown is so similiar to the wedding dress I wore give years ago. But I loved the shape it gave me, and I thought it looked really beachy. It made me feel like a million bucks, and also “like me”, so I knew it had to be one of my top contenders.

When you are shopping for a wedding dress, you should think about the things you might want to try, like long sleeves, a v-neck gown, an empire, a big satin ballgown, etc., because finding your dress is sometimes about figuring out what you don’t like as well.

Stay tuned for the next steps after you order your dress (or buy it off the rack)–alterations!