I’m trying to buy a wedding dress, and it has been the most frustrating experience of my life (the first time I went out looking, I came home and cried on my fiance’s shoulder - he has never seen me cry before). How are you supposed to pay hundreds of dollars for a dress that will take 6 months to arrive, that you can’t try on, and have no idea if it will look good on you when it finally gets here? Oh, and the icing on the cake for me - because I’m not a perfect size 7, I want to get a dress that is flattering for my figure type, but how the heck am I supposed to know what is flattering for me when the wedding dress shops have only one or two dresses that are big enough for me to try on, and they are all in some bizarre style that was popular 3 years ago?
So, my question here is, how did you married ladies get through this (especially the non-skinny ones)? Were you able to find a dress that you really liked, or did you end up settling? Are there styles of dresses that are more forgiving than others? Any stories/advice in this area would be much appreciated 
I am a large gal who had a hard time finding a dress. No dresses in my size to be found at the stores. If, by chance, I found one it was about as unflattering as possible.
My advice is to keep looking and don’t let it get to you. Try on the dresses available to get a feel for what looks good on your frame type and what you are comfortable with. Travel to other cities if need be to get the dress you are happy with, are comfortable in and want to see in a photo on your wall for the next 60-odd years. Sit down with the phone book and call the stores, tell them that you are looking for a dress in your size and ask what they have to offer.
Remember too that they can add material to a dress to make it a larger size. I ended up borrowing my sister’s dress (to save on cost) and they added material to the sides and back to make it fit. They did a wonderful job and the dress turned out beautifully. If you find a dress that you love in a smaller size you can always have it altered to fit.
I have no advice on what is and what is not flattering as I have the fashion sense of a dingo, but my mother swears that any kind of V in the waist line is flattering for heavier women. Then again my mother is not heavy and she taught me fashion and look at me.
My only other pearl 'o wisdom for you is regarding the sales clerks. For some odd reason in almost every dress shop I went into they equated me trying on a dress with needing them to walk in to see if it fit, generally when I was half naked.
Sales Clerk: walking in while I am changing So, how’s it going? What do you think of it?
Me: Well, it’s going naked at the moment. Perhaps we could discuss this when I have clothes on.
Tell the sales clerk that you will call her in if you need her.
Good luck in the search. You will find something that you love even if it does not seem that way right now. Keep in mind you do not have to settle for anything less than you want and can reasonably afford.
Check into using a tailor or dress maker - a friend of mine saved quite a bit that way - and you’re guaranteed a perfect fit.
I had mine made. I have a “normal” sized body (meaning the kind that the shops cater for) so there were plenty of choices available, but I wasn’t willing to pay hundreds of ££ for a dress, particularly when none of the dozens I tried on fitted exactly my idea of what I wanted. So after taking the time to see what styles suited me and which bits of dresses I liked and didn’t like, I made a sketch of my ideal dress. I took this to a dress maker and decided on fabrics, colours, etc. My design was primarily based on one particular dress I had liked (which would’ve cost £600+ – $1000+ – in the shops) with various modifications I’d made. In all having the dress made cost £250 (less than $400). I got exactly what I wanted, tailor made, at a bargain price, and I’d recommend that to anyone. I should warn you that the process can still take several months though, depending on things like what time of year you’re getting married (i.e. how busy the tailor is) and how easy it is to get a hold of the fabrics you want.
Here’s what Mrs. Rastahomie (a, uh, full-figured woman) did:
She found an old lady in her (small) home town who custom-made it for her. The old lady was thrilled to death to have something meaningful to do, and Mrs. Rastahomie got a beautiful, custom-made dress for around $300.
Do you live in a small town? Do you know any one who does? Do you know any old ladies? Ask your Mom. Heck, ask your grandma. Surely they have a bridge partner or FOAF or someone who can hook them up with a seamstress who can cut you a deal.
Insesnitive, Manly Advice Coming
What are the chances of me talking you into just going to the courthouse? You could skip all the stress of the wedding, save a ton of money, and get it over with in 30 minutes, tops. You could wear a nice dress from your closet. Then blow the extra money on a nice trip to Disneyworld or some place.
I went to a chain shop during the $99 sale. They had ungodly amounts of dresses that went up way higher than my size. I usually wear about 12 or 14 but ended up with a 18 for the bust size. Don’t freak if someone hands you a dress that looks too huge. They may just want the extra room to take up to get the right fit around the bust and hips. The only drawback was when I had picked out everything and paid for it the service kind of dropped off - like now that they had my money they weren’t going to kiss my ass anymore. My dress was a day late with the alterations and I didn’t like the cut but everything ended up ok.
A v-style can be very flattering but make sure you have the tummy to pull it off. I don’t. One major don’t: vertical folds! I tried on a lovely dress that had multiple vertical folds down the front (looked better than it sounds) and I looked like someone had wrapped vertical blinds around a moving pig. Oh, and a size 2 was trying on the same dress at the same time. Joy. It looked great on her.
I will think of alot more to post later (got a baby in my arms right now).
Congrats!
My wife selected her wedding dress from the other side of the globe, with a lot of help from my sister-in-law (my brothers wife) and her bridesmaid (my cousin). They sent pictures, we sent measurements, and when we went from Singapore to Holland for the wedding, two visits to the shop within a week were enough to have a perfect wedding dress.
My wife has the probably unique achievement to have worn her wedding dress (and I my groom’s suit) on three occasions, in three different countries, within six weeks. After the formal wedding in Holland (my home country), we had a big wedding celebration in Shanghai (my wife’s home town) and a smaller scale one in Singapore (where we both met and now live).
featherlou, I see you live in Canada, and I don’t know if you live in a big city or what, but I lived in New York City when I was getting married, and I had a hard time finding a dress. I went into a few boutiques to try on dresses, and got so disgusted with myself, and the whole idea of buying a dress, that I came home crying. All the dresses they had to try on were in a size 10 or 12, and formal dresses are cut smaller than regular clothes anyway, so they were really small.
I read all the bridal magazines I could, and familiarized myself with all the different styles and cuts. I found out which styles would look best on my figure, and had some idea what I was looking for.
The magazines have regional advertising, and I found out about a place in Pennsylvania that carried all sizes, and had many in stock to try on. I planned a day trip with my mother and my Maid of Honor, and off we went.
When I got there the saleslady measured me, and I tried on all the dresses they had in my size. The dress I ended up buying was the last one I tried on, because it was an eggshell color, and next to all the other pure white dresses it looked discolored. I really didn’t like it on the hanger, and the saleslady had to pressure me into trying it on. When I put it on, I knew I had found The Dress. It was a size 26(!), and before I put it on, I thought there was no way it would fit, I thought I’d be swimming in it. The reason it was such a large size is that I had to fit my enormous breasts in it first, and everything else could be taken in.
Another thing you should do is buy the underwear you plan on wearing and wear it when you go trying on dresses. A good corset can make all the difference!
Don’t be discouraged…this is your wedding! Have fun, and keep an open mind. If I had gone with my first impression of my dress, I wouldn’t have even tried it on. I looked like a princess on my wedding day, and I know you will too.
Good luck, and best wishes
Rose
I made my wedding dress. I knew that there was no way I could find the kind of dress I wanted, in my size (20). Besides, all the dresses that I could find in my size were cheap, lacy-beady affairs–I wanted something simple, with no beads or lace, and with a really nice, lovely fabric.
I had some experience, as I used to make costumes for the Renaissance Faires, but I’m certainly no expert. I found a pattern for a 1830’s style day dress: high-waisted (because I’m very thick-middled), gigot sleeves, and a nice ankle-length skirt that was not too heavily pleated.
I have to say, one of the great things about making my own dress is that I had control over it. No one was going to deliver it late, or take six months to make it. I could always try it on as I needed to make adjustments.
With that said, I know that not everyone can sew. So, I suggest, along with the others, to look into finding someone who can make the dress for you. You’ll have the style you want, the color you want, the size you need, with much less heartache–and with more money left in your wallet. I spent a total of $150 on my dress, most of which went into the fabric (a heavy ivory tapestry-type fabric, which was originally made for upholstery. I’ve seriously considered turning my dress into cushions.)
Do take a look into your local dressmaker and see what she can do for you. Buy bridal magazines (if you haven’t already) and tear out the pictures of what you like best and show her. You probably have a picture in your head of exactly how you’d like to look, and let her know that, too (I think that’s what’s so frustrating about looking for wedding dresses–often you know what you want, but it’s the matter of actually finding it that is so hard)
Just wanted to add real quickly:
I’m getting married again next year, and I’ll be going to a dressmaker this time, as what I have in mind is a little more complicated. I’m thinking close to what Bette Davis wore in All About Eve in the party scene. A 50’s style cocktail dress, off the shoulder. Light to medium blue silk.
This is great advice, everyone. It’s really good to know I’m not the only one dealing with this crap - when I go into the wedding dress shops, I feel like a beached whale in there amongst the sylph-like 20 year olds. What really burns me is that I’m really not that big - why would wedding dress manufacturers/retailers want to make women with normal woman curves feel so badly about themselves on their “special day”?
Well, I walked into a bridal shop. Found my size (not a lot of choices, I’m a full-figured person) tried on the first one I found, fell in love with it, bought it. It happened to be on sale. So I got a perfect wedding dress that orginally cost 900 for 400.
Probably not the helpful hint you wanted to hear though.
Here in the U.S. we have a chain called “David’s Bridal” that sells dresses off-the-rack. That means dozens of styles, in every size. The dress you buy may have been tried on before by a bunch of prospective brides, but who gives a rat’s ass? You can clean it and do minor repairs if needed.
I don’t know if you have something similar in Canada near where you are, but if so it’s worth a drive. As it happens, I didn’t buy my dress there, but it was helpful to have tried on a bunch of styles IN MY SIZE to see what grabbed me.
I think the best was when some schmatnzy boutique suggested that I could see how a dress would look by merely putting my arms through the sleeves and letting the rest of the dress just hang in front of my body. I understand their reluctance to let me do something like squeeze my wide rump into it without zipping, but to suggest that I’d be just as satisfied with the arm thing was worth a hearty laugh.
Note: if you go wiht the custom-made route make sure that you are dealing with a real tailor, not someone tht knows enough to sew up pillows, and make sure that it will be finnished a long time before the actual wedding date.
A friend of mine had her bridesmaid’s dresses made by a friend of her stepmom’s. A week before the wedding they went in for the “final fitting” only to discover that the woman couldn’t sew nearly as well as she thought she could–the dresses didn’t fit, they didn’t match each other, the fabric was inferior to want the girls had been lead to expect–they were totally unwearable.
Having the dress custom made is a good idea, but ask to see pictures of other wedding dresses the person has done, and pick the dress up far enough in advance that if it sucks there is time to find another option.
Featherlou, I only live an hour away from you and I sew, PLUS I have 10 yards of raw silk from Thailand that was bought specifically for my wedding dress - I don’t need it now… when do you get married?
Ginger
Cranky, I got told to do the arm thing too; yeah, that was real helpful, sticking my arms through size 5 dresses that I could still see my body on either side of the dress :rolleyes:
Ginger, our wedding date is set for Aug. 2002 (I know, it sounds like I’m looking way too early, but I kind of anticipated that finding the perfect dress would be a real time-consuming hassle - and it has been!)
(pepperlandgirl, I’m glad to hear that it went so smoothly for someone. You beat the system - yay!)
Egads, featherlou, I opened this thread with great trepidation…I’m preparing to be married in Spring/Summer 2002. I’ve only made it into one formalwear shop…where I was pretty much ignored in favour of the local high school girls preparing for Prom. I went in trying to locate a specific dress that I had seen online and to find out the price and the store’s ordering policy. I was happy. I thought I had found something that would work. From the salesperson, I get: You’re going to be a bride in that? (It was purple and strapless. I really don’t want to wear white. 
) Needless to say, that unpleasant [sub]ahem[/sub] is the reason I haven’t gone out shopping again…
Um, Blue, what kind of bribe do you want to e-mail me the name of that store? 
I, too, had my wedding dress made. I hate bows and ruffles and sequins and all that frilly girly crap. In fact, if my mother would not have killed me, I probably would have gotten married in pants! My dressmaker is a fantastic woman. She made my dress from memory after seeing me once when we picked out the fabric. (She sews pageant dresses.) When I came for my first fitting, all she had to do was hem the dress a little–it was a perfect fit. The dress is very simple and elegant–it is off-white, lace bodice, long sleeves ending in points, satin skirt (slightly textured print), even have a matching veil.
I don’t know what size you need, how you feel about the symbolism or if you really want bows and lace etc. but if you don’t come up with anything by the time the wedding rolls around, I’d be happy to let you borrow mine!
I’m afraid I’m no help here either. My experience was much like pepper’s. I went into a shop, tried all the rentals they had (I didn’t want to buy a dress I’d wear once!) and hated them all. They had a rack of dresses on sale for half price and I tried one (1!) of them and it fit like a dream and was everything I wanted.
Here is a site about wedding dress scams by bridal shops.
http://www.bridaltips.com/bridal.htm
"We got this from a former bridal shop employee:
“The last bridal shop I worked at started practicing the “Free alterations” sham. We took an average price of alterations needed for every wedding dress we sold in the past year and added that average to the cost of the gown. So, a dress that should have cost $500 would cost 600 or more. The same is true for the “Free” shoes, bra, & slip rental with purchase of a gown. The shoes and bra are usually of the lowest quality. The shop usually tacks on an additional $100 or more for all those Freebies.”
Vows Magazine published an article in 9/98 stating bridal shops should divulge the manufacturer’s name when asked. We’d like it to go one step further and just leave the tags on there. But some shops still remove the labels, leaving nothing at all, which is illegal, and immoral. Bridal shops are the only retail stores that do this practice. We soapbox this issue because we get a lot of emails from brides who complain about this. If the dress is not made with the shop’s label sewn in, it better have the manufacturer’s label with the required FTC info on it. Some stores try to be lawyers and nit pick through the law to prove that it is legal, but they are missing the boat. We have to wonder, did these same people write the same nasty grams to the FTC and accuse them of “whining” when they wrote these laws? When you go to the store to buy a camera, they don’t scratch “Nikon” or “Canon” off the camera. You wouldn’t buy the camera. So why buy a wedding dress with no label. We are not slanted against all bridal shops, just the ones who cheat. "
and lots more.