My D (who is getting married over Memorial Day weekend) is sending out digital Save the Date cards, but will have printed invitations.
She and I went to look at wedding dresses last weekend and she’s going back in December to a shop where she narrowed her choices to two dresses. She’ll take a friend and her sister with her this time.
@Bromfield2 - has your D made sure they can have the dress for her in time? The only reason I am asking is that D1’s dress took 7 months before it came in. She found it 13 months before the wedding.
That is my concern, too! In our case, the major issue was alteration. All seamstresses were booked months out! @Bromfield2 I recommend looking for a seamstress now.
When D1 was looking for a wedding dress about 7 months out from wedding date part of her decision as far as where to look and purchase from was to ask if the store had their own recommended or employed seamstresses. So then we knew they were more likely to get her serviced the dress ready to go AND we knew they would truly have the professional experience of doing wedding dress alteration magic!!!
D bought her dress late September/first of October for an April 13 wedding.
The salesperson assured D that there was time for alterations but that D had to decide within the next two weeks. It will be 6.5 months. I hope she’s correct.
D1’s dress took 5 months, D2’s took 4 months to come in.
Can I digress?
As a starting point I decided to find a used wedding dress, but ended up finding an antique lace dress from 1910. (For $350!). Because the lace was in a pattern it could not be altered.
I had a moment during my wedding when I realized the original owner of the dress had the exact same height/body shape as I did, and she walked up the aisle almost 100 years before me.
My wedding gown was the floor sample and fit nearly perfectly. I was supposed to have some alterations but the alterations didn’t really fix the issue and I wore the dress anyway (veil covered most of the issue anyway). I believe the dress was $149 in 1986—no charge for the alteration & they pressed my gown for the wedding.
If we are talking interesting/funny wedding dress stories… (I may have posted this before)
My current husband and I were both married to other people in 1987. When we were moving, we came across my husband’s first wedding pictures. His first wife and I wore the EXACT SAME wedding dress to our first weddings. Hers was white and mine was ivory. She wore a hat and I wore baby’s breath in my hair. But the dress was the same.
Found mine at a store where I was going to college; they let me write down the info and then my Mom and I had the local shop order it. No alterations, I don’t think it occurred to anyone that it was a possibility.
My daughter asked me this week what my wedding dress shopping story was. (She got married in April 2024 so we were doing that last fall).
I said, well, we went to the one bridal store in town, my mom - always a bargain shopper - said let’s check the sample rack, found one that fit and seemed fine - $99 out the door and I don’t think as @greenbutton said we probably didn’t even think about alterations - if it zipped or buttoned up that was good enough!
We went to Nashville in June to shop for daughter’s wedding in Oct. She went to 3 stores, and #1 and #3 were telling her she’d have to pay for expedited order, and #3 was iffy if they could get it by september. Good thing she like the dress at #2 the best. She ordered a week or so later and I think it came in in 2 weeks. She had the alterations done locally (she lives about 1 hour away) and it was mostly hemming. She came very close to having no alterations to the top (and then lost weight and it was a little loose at the wedding). She tried on a size 4, ordered a size 4, and that was almost the perfect fit. I think the reason she liked it so much was that it fit at the trying on. Store #3 had mostly size 12 and she was swimming in them so they didn’t look good (and were way more expensive).
The store she bought at was Vow’d, and they have stores in several cities and on line, and they were quick to fill the order.
My daughter got her dress at Grace Loves Lace, the dress was made to her specifications and needed no altering.
They didn’t bustle it, no option to. Maybe she could have gone to a private place. She ordered hers 6 months ahead.
She had a reception dress so it didn’t matter for dancing that the dress had a train.
DD bought the sample size, and the only alteration it needed was hemming…which they did at the bridal shop. DD also convinced them they should dry clean this sample dress, and store it for free for DD for the year…and they agreed. There was also no charge for the alteration and the kid got 20% off the purchase price.
My daughter’s dress was also Grace Lives Lace. No alterations. I think we ordered 6 months in advance.
We found a dress for me! Okay, we have ordered a dress that DiL/bestie/FdIL agree is wonderful and it was a Black Friday deal but still returnable if the fit is off. Very excited. It was way more than I had planned to spend, and then my DH said for heaven’s sake, you deserve a pretty dress for once instead of “good enough”.
It’s from someplace called Kay Unger? I am guessing clothes people have heard of her/it.
Congratulations, Kay Unger has nice dresses.
Congrats! Kay Unger is a well known brand and makes nice, quality dresses. 
it fits!
Will we get to see a picture of this Kay Unger dress….?
