Buying a wedding dress in a foreign country

I have no experience with buying a dress from another country, but if you have relatives who actually know the dress makers... that seems like a much safer bet than buying from a random dress maker.

My sister did this with her BM dresses. The dresses were nice and less expensive than buying them off the rack but be sure to get your dress with plenty of time to spare in case something doesn't fit and needs to be altered. I was also thinking of having a dress made in case I don't find one here in the states that I like. Your biggest hassle will be trying to get the dress back over here. Good luck!

My FH and family are from PI, and we discussed the same thing. One thing to keep in mind is that a wedding dress in PI is NOTHING like a wedding dress here, traditionally speaking. They wear dresses made of pina (pineapple cloth) that are brightly colored. I went with a traditional American dress. However, we are having barongs (traditonal men's shirts) made in PI, and even something simple like that has been a pain. The lead time is roughly 6mos (for a shirt!) and shipping is insane, not to mention that finding someone to alter them if they need it will be daunting. For something like a gown, I can imagine it would be much more intense. I'm certain that they are more than capable, just my 2 cents.

Oh, and the pricing there for everything we looked into was equavalent to here, plus the added cost of shipping.