Wedding dresses these days come in all shapes, sizes, laces and designs.  Do you want bare shoulders, lacey, full sleeves, no sleeves, long with a 5′ train, no train, simple, elegant?  Who knows but you (ok and maybe the opinions of your family).  If you ever watch TLC you will see all the shows about weddings, from dresses, to the planning, cakes, and even difficult brides (who I believe aren’t really trying to be difficult).

So let’s get back to dresses.  In the past it was a tradition that the new bride would wear her mother’s dress or take parts of it an make a new dress that someone in the family or a friend would sew for them.  Also wedding dresses were not all white.  Yes, there was a day when you would and could wear a colored dress (My grandmother wore a dark green dress – and she got married in Febuary).  Now a days most everyone wears either white or off white as a tradition.

There are those brides however that don’t like to be the “norm” and will vary from tradition.  I say “hail to you”  who always wants to be traditional.

Ok, but back to tradition for now.

So you want a traditonal dress, you’ve looked in all the bridal magazines and have cut out pictures of what appeals to you.  Now you “try” to go find it.  If you live in a town with only 1 or 2 bridal boutiques your changes of finding “the” particular dress may be limited.  Of course they can order it, but why order & pay for something you are not able to try on or see?  I surely wouldn’t!  So you find something similar and holy cow it makes you look like a “cow”  – well who wants that.  It’s a good thing you have more than one picture and idea for your dress.  So you go to the next and the next and so on until you are exhausted.  You go the next day again & do it all over and nothing.

Maybe now it’s time to take a drive.  You may have to go to a bigger city/town in your area to find the perfect dress.  It’s funny too that when you find the “perfect” dress it may not be at all what you initially wanted or expected, so be prepared.

My advice is this.  YES cut out those pictures, figure out what your style is and do your best to get it.  However be open to the possibility that what you want and what you get may be two very different things.  Don’t be afraid too to have someone make your dress for you either.  There are alot of great seamstresses who will be happy to help.  They may or may not be more expensive, you have to check it out. 

I know some 12 years ago my sister had a particular idea for a dress and it happened to be one with satin and lace to look like something from the old west.  Now try to find that on the racks at a store – no such deal, so she had it made and at that time it cost around $350 for a custom dress.  I don’t think that’s to bad, even today.  My daughter went the other way, she went with a white dress, but spent $25 on a dress from a famous bra company, she ordered it from a catalog and with the veil we made it looked great.  She now has that dress to wear to the beach or to dinner.

That brings up the question, what do you do with your dress after the party?  Preserve it? For what?  There is a new trend in photography called “Wreck the dress” ask your photographer, they should be able to tell you all about it.  Basically you go out and run, jump, stomp in your dress.  Sounds crazy, but I will tell you that 30 years since I got married my dress is still at my mothers house hanging in the closet, my daughter didn’t want to wear it, so maybe I will save it for a granddaughter someday.

Enjoy your dress shopping, don’t get to stressed out and don’t be disappointed when you don’t get the dress you originally pictured you’de be walking down the aisle in.  Have fun with it.

Enjoy your planning.