To Shop or not to shop

I personally wouldn’t shop this early. It’s definitely safe to look around and get a feel for what you want, but bodies change and new dresses come out every season.

I bought my dress that early and it was perfect. I knew what I wanted and my size doesn’t fluctuate.

Daughter bought her dress about 16 months in advance. However, she was ABSOLUTELY certain about what she wanted in general and about her dress once she found it. Also, her weight hasn't fluctuated in almost 10 years. She loved her dress the first time she tried it on and continues to do so now, a year after her wedding. Unfortunately, based on this forum, that is not true for a LOT of brides. There are SO many posts about "dress regret" and from brides who've ended up purchasing multiple dresses. I think it really depends on how decisive you are. If you're the kind of person who makes a decision and then sticks to it, go for it. If not, I'd shop around, but not make a commitment just yet. Also, consider if and how much you care about other people's opinions. It seems a lot of the dress regret posts come from brides who took too many and/or very opinionated people with them, and they let those voices influence them. Daughter knew she didn't want anyone but me to go dress shopping with her, and I kept my opinions completely to myself until I clearly knew what she was thinking. Good luck! Our only regret after daughter found her dress was that our dress shopping expeditions were over because they were one of the most fun parts of a completely awesome wedding planning experience.

I was wondering this same thing! My venue and date is set as well I’m June 6, 2021! When is your date?

Hi Amber,
Congratulations, I would start looking at dresses online to get an idea of what style you think would look best on you, that's what I did before going into the boutiques to try them on, I would also tell you to not book more than 2 appointments in 1 day, and not to bring to many people along with you ( I only brought my MOH ) to many opinions can cloud your judgement! It also helps if the boutique has a seamstress on staff to recommend what alterations you should want, my wedding is 13 months away and I've had my dress for 6 months already, alterations won't be until 3 months before, I tried on 30 dresses before I found my dream dress, so don't get pressured into picking one right away, shopping for the dress is the MOST EXCITING PART!!!!! 👰 my dress is from Stella York, style 6979, if you care to see it, I would love your opinion if you do, good luck!

View Quoted Comment Our date is June 5, 2021! Congrats!

View Quoted Comment Thank you for the advice! And your dress is beautiful!

I wouldn't make any final decisions. But dress shopping was my favorite part of wedding planning! So go and try some on, get a feel for what you like, and have some fun!

View Quoted Comment Congrats to you as well

I would definitely start looking; now if you are really excited! I actually picked out my wedding dress about 1 1/2 years before the wedding because I couldn't wait. It gave me plenty of time to pay it off and one HUGE thing to check off my to do list. Congratulations!

I’m also getting married in June of 2021! Dress shopping is definitely what I’m looking the most forward to! I’m waiting until about a year away from the wedding, so June of this year. But I don’t think it would be a bad thing to go this early to at least try some on! That way you can get a good idea of what you want. 😊 Good luck and congratulations!

I found my dress 8 months before my wedding! I think that if you know what you want, start trying stuff on. I thought I knew what I wanted but after trying on said style, i found it wasn't for me! My stylist suggested a dress, I thought it was too poofy, but I tried it on anyways because I trusted my stylist. It turned out to be PERFECT! I am not a dress up person, so I wanted to get dress shopping out of the way to minimize the stress. I am now 5 months out for the wedding and I am still just as excited to wear it as I was when I bought it!

I got engaged Feb 2019 and my wedding is Aug 2020. I found and purchased my dress end of Mar 2019 and I'm honestly so glad I got that out of the way as soon as I did because I was able to get it altered sooner (if it needs further altering closer to my wedding date my seamstress said she'd do an additional "final" fitting). The only con I've found is that avoiding looking at other dresses has been closer to impossible because of all the Facebook wedding groups I'm in as well as the ones posted on here. That being said, be careful in regards to dress regret and remember when you do choose your dress that it was "the one" for a reason!