What you wear on your wedding day, be it a dress, tuxedo, or pantsuit, should be a garment you truly love. Here are five things to consider when selecting a wedding dress (or any outfit of your choice!) that will leave you feeling confident, comfortable, and satisfied.
Venue:
When selecting a wedding dress, it is important to consider your venue. Although the venue and wedding outfit may seem unrelated, but they are actually very much connected. For example, a ballgown may not be the best choice for a rustic farm wedding where you will be taking pictures in fields, gardens, long grass, etc. Similarly, a dress of heavy satin will probably collect large amounts of sand at a beach wedding. Venue need not be the ultimate determinate of your wedding dress, but it should be considered for the sake of functionality and practicality.
Budget:
Determine where the dress falls on your list of wedding priorities. Then, use that determination to help allocate a specific percentage of your budget specifically towards the wedding dress. If you plan to have both a ceremony and reception dress, consider how you plan to divide the dress budget between them and if one is more important than another. Cosmopolitan.com suggests, “You really have to be honest with yourself, your family, and your fiancé(e) and determine how much you’re able to spend on the dress — before you make your try-on appointment.” They also suggest checking out specific designers’ trunk shows, as these are excellent opportunities to get a brand new dress at a fraction of its original cost. A full-service wedding planner can be extremely helpful at this stage, as they will help with budget management along with later payment tracking.
Comfort:
It is best to choose a dress in which you can move around comfortably and feel confident. Helin Jung of Cosmopolitan notes that it’s particularly important to find well fitting undergarments in order to ensure you have the proper support. As we say at Ivory Events, “Your wedding day should be the best day ever.” Therefore, you should be able to focus on your significant other, not a dress that is ridiculously heavy or annoyingly itchy.
Alterations:
Part of ensuring the comfort of your dress is the quality of the alterations. Just as you allocate a specific percentage of the dress, you should also allocate a percentage for the alterations. According to Meg Keene, author of A Practical Wedding Planner, basic alterations such as hemming will cost anywhere from $100-$400. Most commonly, however, alterations will fall between $300-$600. Keene states that this will include hemming, taking the bodice in, and the general work that is entailed with a more embellished and intricate garment.
Initial Reaction:
Your gut reaction should be positive and filled with confidence. As Cosmpolitan.com states, the perfect dress is “like your innermost thoughts and all your desires and everything you wish for on your wedding day.” Whether this means selecting a neon purple dress, a flowy romper, or an edgy pantsuit, it is important that what you wear makes you feel truly amazing.