Wedding Dress Timeline - How to Speed It Up

I bought my dress, and it will be ready within 1 month of purchase. How did I do it??

Background: Businesses in the United States started shutting down soon after I got engaged. I thought we’d be back in business sooner than later so I postponed my dress shopping. Things got worse.

I am at a point where I’m ready to start setting dates. I’m looking at possibly getting married in August…maybe September…maybe October. (Who knows!) But what I did know is that I need a dress!

I went to my first bridal appointment, and they told me any dress I’d want would take at least 6 months to get ready! Far too long for the dates I’m interested in.

How did I move forward?

SAMPLE SHOPS!

What are sample shops? These are stores that bridal stores send their sample dresses to. They can come in all sorts of sizes, and they can be in all sorts of conditions. If the dress has been worn many times by many different people, it’s possible there will be some issues (broken zippers, busted seams, missing beads). These can be fixed through alterations and the dress is appropriately discounted for the imperfections and inconvenience.

HOWEVER, the dress also could be brand new! My wedding dress is completely new - it had never been worn before.

How did this happen? The dress designer discontinued my dress as soon as the bridal store received the sample. They no longer had a use for the sample since the bridal store could no longer order that dress for future brides. They sent my dress to a sample shop, and I was the first to try it on. I took it right off the rack! (And it was significantly discounted!)

If your timeline is a little crunched like mine is, don’t let wedding dress supply chains affect your date. Try a sample shop!

I think there is still a lot of value in going to bigger bridal shops. I tried on tons of dresses, so I knew exactly what I wanted in my future wedding dress. When I went to the sample shop, I had a tailored search and was able to be extremely efficient.

I have other tips for dress shopping. Stay tuned!