More than a year out- too early to buy a dress? Family reasons

I don't think it's too early. Dresses can take as much as 6 months to come in. I bought mine last summer, but then postponed my date, so it'll be sitting in storage for almost 2 years by the time I actually get to wear it.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! My sister/MOH was surprised I was shopping then, so I was just second-guessing myself. Thanks again!

If you don't want to commit to a dress this early you can always go shopping with your mom, pick one, and wait to actually purchase it until later on. I don't think there's anything wrong with looking now, but I would suggest if you do get it sooner rather than later to stop looking at dresses once you buy yours. I think continuing to look is what gives a lot of brides dress regret.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! Dress regret is a concern too. I definitely don’t want that to happen. I think I’ll go shopping in November and see if I find something I love. If so, great! And I’ll stop looking.


If I feel like i need to keep shopping, that’s also okay. Just hope my mom can be there!

I “bought” mine in February 2020, but didn’t have the store place the order for the dress until November 2020 for my October 2021 wedding for the same reason. My store had a policy where you have to pay half to order the dress and the other half when it comes in. I wasn’t even going to order the dress until January, but the store called me and told me it was being discontinued at the end of 2020.


I’m doing my fittings now and I still love it!! I highly recommend unfollowing any bridal designers on Instagram and not looking at any other dresses once you’ve made up your mind.

There are many stories on here of brides who have ordered their dresses from shops and didn’t have enough time for proper alterations because the dress came in later than they expected. I got my dress from StillWhite 15 months before the wedding and let it hang in my closet until it was time for alterations. I would say go for it!

I bought my dress from a bridal salon in mid November for my wedding in august and it was the perfect time. I would have been stressed if I waited because the dress took six months to come in which is average. Definitely go dress shopping with your mom!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much! Yes i think it’ll be good for my peace of mind since the dress is one of my priorities!

View Quoted Comment Yay thank you!

View Quoted Comment Thanks!! I may get mine from a sample shop so i might have a very similar experience to you!

View Quoted Comment That’s such a good idea! And yes I’ll definitely unfollow all dress stuff once I pick one. Thanks 💜

So my first piece of advice is definitely finalize your venue and date BEFORE buying your dress. Many brides buy a dress pre-maturely and then end up changing their minds because it doesn't fit their venue or they end up deciding on a fall date when they thought they'd be getting married in the heat of summer.

You can absolutely go dress shopping with your mom around Thanksgiving - it doesn't mean you need to buy anything right away. I would say the ideal time to buy a dress is about 8-12 months before your wedding. not 18 months out. Do keep in mind it can take several months for an ordered dress to come in and then another several months for alterations. However you can go early to have the shopping experience with your mom, and try on different dresses to get an idea of what you like without committing. If there is a sample dress on the sale rack that you love you could always buy it early.

As for weight loss, its all relative. If you are a size 4, losing 15 pounds might make you a size 0, and while those alterations are possible, it might involve restructuring the dress. If you are plus sized and weigh 200 pounds and want to get down to 185 lbs, then those 15 pounds might not even be enough to change your dress size at all and might require the smallest of adjustments for a perfect fit. It also depends on the style of dress - an a-line dress made of a simple fabric is a lot easier to alter and a lot more forgiving of weight and measurement fluctuations than a heavily beaded and embellished mermaid dress. I'm typically a US street size 6 and had a fit-and-flare dress made of a non-stretch lace fabric; with my dress just 5 pounds was the difference between me not being able to sit down at all and having the dress feel a bit loose.

View Quoted Comment Thank you SO much for the comprehensive reply! You’re really addressing some of my concerns.



The #1 thing is that i will definitely finalize my venue/date before buying anything. That absolutely makes sense. I’ll finalize my venue before doing anything else, honestly.
For the weight loss- I’m currently 140ish so would hopefully go to 125ish (a previous size i was), but i can lose some of that before shopping so I’m not super concerned. Also- great point about dress types! I’m definitely more of an a-line kind of gal. But i don’t want to rule anything out before trying! But if i were to get a more fitted dress, i know from experience how much my hips/butt change with weight loss/gain. It’s such a pain with regular clothes, let alone wedding dresses.
Again, thanks a bunch for the reply! I’ll keep it all in mind.

View Quoted Comment

No problem!

For the past year or so I've hovered around around 135 lbs, give or take a few pounds, which is probably a good healthy weight for me and my natural "set point" at this age (I'd love to get closer to the 130 I was fifteen years ago, but I'm also happy where I am). My weight has fluctuated some throughout my life (118-165), so I can confidently say that I've had clothes that fit me even with a 15 pound weight difference, but nearly all of my clothes have some stretch in them. My wedding dress, which was super fitted and had no stretch, was not nearly as accommodating to my weight fluctuations as a sweater or pair of jeggings. Like you, my hips/butt are most affected when I gain and lose weight, so I if had an a-line dress instead of something fitted through the hips I think a 5-10 pound difference would have been a non-issue for me in terms of fit and probably required no adjustments at all. With a fit-and-flare dress in a non-stretch fabric, those few pounds and inch or so of difference were much more significant in terms of fit.

I think if you end up with an a-line dress, you would likely only need to make minor adjustments to fit if your weight fluctuates between 125-140 pounds. Chances are whatever dress you buy will require some alterations and adjustments anyway, so as long as your size doesn't change by more than 1-2 sizes, I don't think there would be much harm in buying a dress early if you find something you love. But you can also definitely go shopping and try things on and not buy anything right away too!