There are two schools of thought when it comes to purchasing a wedding gown—to buy in a bridal salon, or purchase your dress on-line. In this video we contrast and compare these two options.
The following article is an example of the content we have in our online wedding planning membership site HappyWeddings.ca under the heading of Wedding Gown. To learn more and get useful wedding planning tools for FREE click here!
There are two common schools of thought when it comes to purchasing a wedding gown: to buy in a bridal salon, or to purchase your dress on-line. Actually, there are other options, but that is for another video—here we will address the bridal salon and on-line shopping.
Most wedding dresses on-line and in bridal stores come from the same manufacturers. Yes, there are always designers making limited edition dresses, or tailors who will custom design a dress for you, but we aren’t talking about them in this video. We are focusing on the many thousands of dresses available to you through the major wedding dress manufacturers.
The bridal salon option has the advantage that you can see, touch and try on your dress. It is usually more expensive because they have the overhead of a building to pay for, utilities, taxes, and staff. Many brides look for their gown in a bridal salon, and then go on-line to purchase the same gown because it is cheaper on-line. Needless to say, bridal salons don’t like that very much, and have various tactics to make doing that difficult.
The major on-line wedding suppliers have detailed descriptions, great pictures, and a full range of sizes from petite size 0 to plus size 28 or higher for all their designers. They have many affiliates, which means that local websites advertise their products, but when you go to buy, you are redirected to the major supplier. It makes product easier for you to find on-line, and you get the security of working directly with the major supplier for your purchase. Some wedding websites will use ‘scare tactics’ to get you to not trust the ‘big-bad-internet’ for your wedding purchases—except for them, of course—and they charge you for that privilege. So, shop around, and if you are unsure, ask us in the members’ forum, or during a coaching call—we will do our best to investigate and ensure the site you are interested in is reputable. And remember our module on the Better Business Bureau—always check out the store you are buying from whether it is an on-line store, or your local shop.
Look in the resource section of this module to find a document called Wedding Dress Definitions. If you don’t know the difference between a sweep train and a chapel train, or the difference between a mantilla veil and a blusher veil, you will find this information and more in this document. Enjoy!