Wedding dress Now or later!

Wedding dresses can take up to 9 months to come, then alterations take a couple months. I would order it now in the size that you are. A good seamstress can bring it in two sizes if necessary.

You should at least be looking around to find one you like so you can order it soon. They can take months to come in and you don't want to be worrying about it arriving in time, plus having time for fittings.

As a professional seamstress who's worked in the bridal industry, I'd at least start looking so you know what you really want. If you order certain designer or custom dresses they can take up to 3 months to arrive, and alterations usually have a 4-week turn around from your first fitting to the next appointment (at which you may take it home or may need something tweaked, adding another 2-4 week wait). When your dress arrives you can ask the alterations staff what they would advise based on your dress and the business pace of their store whether it would be better to go ahead and fit early and tweak later if needed or fit closer to the wedding. Also let the salesperson know while shopping that you're planning to lose weight ask what size they would advise you to order. I say order what fits you at the time of purchase just in case you don't lose weight the way you expect. It's easy to alter within 2 sizes, and if you get a corset back dress you'll have added adjustability for the wedding day since it laces to fit. Always try your dress on as soon as it comes in so you know what you'll need...I've seen many people panic from waiting til last minute to try it on at all! (And break in your shoes early..they'll be more comfortable and you'll need them when you get your dress fitted!)

Lol sorry for the long post but I hope it's helpful! Congrats!

Most dress shops where I looked gave the advice to order a dress 10 months in advance. Many dresses take 6 months to come in once they are ordered, and you need two months to complete alterations on the dress before the wedding. The recommended adding the extra two months of buffer in case the dress took longer than 6 months to ship to protect the two months your seamstress would want for alterations.

With that timeline, you want to be ready to make a choice and order a dress by this time next month. You should absolutely start making appointments now to try on dresses to figure out what style dress you want. It took me three months to decide on a dress once I started shopping, and I actually tried on "the dress" three separate times before I was ready to say it was definitely the one I wanted. If you start looking at dresses now, you'll be giving yourself the time to visit multiple dress shops (in case you don't find the perfect dress your first time out) and the time to think your dress decision through so you can be confident about the choice you make.

Thank you all for your advice!!!!! Going to start looking asap!