Other great dresses besides David's Bridal..??

I got my dress in a local boutique. Except for alterations, it was a great experience and in 2 hours I had my dress.

I am getting my dress from a local store, but they have a huge online store and will ship anywhere. www.mydress4less.com . The people who work in the stores are awesome and I have called several times with questions and was never made to feel llike I was bothering them :-) They also price match too! What they told me is if I find something that they don't have a sample for if I find a store that has the sample go try it on and they can order it for me and match the comps price Good luck with your hunting dear

A friend works for a small one (don't know the name) and I will go there. However, I am also considering:

IBEX Bridal

Bella Wedding

St. Pucchi

The White Dress

Yea, I would check out local boutiques. I would have a hard time trusting buying a dress online. But that's just me.

Thanks everyone because when I search online only the cheap looking places pop up and I dont want to waste my money on a knock off bad dress

I found my list on theknot.com

I got my dress from a local boutique as well. It was an amazing experience! One-on-one attention for 90 minutes and I found my dress!

@forevermylove ohkay I will check them out

I went to Alfred Angelo.

Great experience with Alfred Angelo. Love my bridal gown and the BM dresses are so nice that I took my daughter to AA to get her prom dress there. 8 dresses total and each of them was well made with no problems

I went to David's bridal for my first dress shopping experience.. I liked the dresses but wasn't in love.. I found a couple designers that I liked ( Maggie sottero, allure bridals and mori lee) I found a bridal boutique that carried all 3 designers gowns and made an appointment.. I ended up buying an allure dress.

I may try to shop by desinger then...cause DB had some things I liked but not all in one dress

Try a local bridal boutique. If you are concerned about budget, they usually have a rack of samples for sale.

Try finding local boutiques. In my opinion, there is nothing like the feeling of trying on "the dress", even if you don't know it until you put it on.

What I did was I looked online at TheKnot.com, WeddingChannel.com (not sure if that's even a site anymore), Brides.com, etc. It can get exhausting. For me, I spent a long time trying to find "the dress" and was convinced that I was going to need to have it custom made through Julius Bridal or something. The dress that ended up being "the dress" was something that I had actually seen several times. It was one of the original Porsha's by Maggie Sottero and was in every magazine BUT they only showed it in fuschia, so it never once caught my eye until I was online one day and found it. I don't remember the exact situation but I ended up going online to Maggie Sottero's "Real Brides" site and there was one bride with the dress. Feel free to do your research. If you find a dress you love, even if it is out of your price range, you might be..

Able to find it online for cheaper on craigslist or bridal classifieds that you can find on many wedding websites.

As far as "big chains" go, there is a company that is very similar to David's Bridal called Alfred Angelo. In my case, mine was at a local boutique called The Bridesmaids Store.

Another bride mentioned sample sales at boutiques. That is something you can look into as well and will save you money. I had luck with that, a bride returned my dress (not sure as to why) so even though it had not been worn, they had to mark down the cost. There's so many options out there, don't let it intimidate you though! Dress shopping should be a fun experience.