Wedding Dress Shopping

Appointments are usually an hour, so make sure your schedule works with travel between stores and you leave time to eat. I ended up visiting 2 myself in preparation for my parent’s visiting for the weekend. I had lined up four appointments for one day. Then COVID happened and I ended up finding a dress with my mother-in-law at a store closing sale. If you’re indecisive like me, I would recommend visiting a couple yourself to at least narrow down your idea of what you like.

When I went shopping a year out from our wedding, I made appointments at 2 stores in one day. As much as I enjoyed going to the shops and trying the dresses on it became a factor of being overwhelmed because I wanted to enjoy that time and try on as many as I could but yet it was a hassle due to having to watch the clock to make sure I would make it to my next appointment timely.
My suggestion is to start with 1 place a day and take it slow, because it can become too much very quickly.

Unfortunately I don't know of any places to recommend in that area.

I went dress shopping in March for our January wedding, and I also live in Georgia!

Most appointments are an hour, so I'd make sure that if you do more than one in a day, that you carve out time for eating, and also traffic. I went to 2 stores in one day, and went to one in the morning (9am) then one around 1pm. That gave us time to stop and eat lunch, and get to the second store. I went to the 3rd store a different weekend.

Not sure where you're located, but I went to BHLDN (Anthropologie), Atlanta Street Bridal Company, and Carrie's Bridal Collection (Macon location).

BHDLN was a let down because they barely had any dresses in the store. They had TONS online, but only about 50 in store to try on, so half of the dresses I loved online weren't available for me to see. The consultant was really nice, but it was the dress selection that let me down.

ASBC has a ton of dresses to select from, but I was also let down with my appointment with them. My consultant kept pulling big poofy ballgowns after I had told her I wanted A-line and something more flowy. She ended up only pulling 6 dresses for me, and myself nor my guests were able to look around at the 100s of others to pull and try on. She also kept putting me in 2 dresses that my mom liked and I hated and kinda pressured me to say yes to one of them, which I didn't lol.

Carrie's was where I got my dress, and had THE BEST experience! The dresses are incredibly affordable, and my consultant listened to what I was telling her. She pushed me outside of my comfort zone, but she also listened to the feedback I gave her. I ended up leaving with 2 dresses because she was that great!

I also bought my wedding dress one year out, and we did everything in one weekend as well. Went to 3 stores on Saturday, 4 stores on Sunday. It did get a bit tiring on the Sunday, but I found my dress that day!

I did 2 shops in one day and found my dress at the second shop. I probably wouldn't do more than 3 in one day, and definitely leave yourself some time in between to enjoy lunch and look over photos from the first shop. When choosing shops, try to pick ones that carry different designers because if you go to 3 shops that all sell the same designers, you won't get a lot of variety. If you are going on a weekend I would make those appointments asap as many shops book up fast on weekends!

I went to roughly 5 stores in total. The first store I visited twice - once by myself and the second time on video conference with my closest family (who was out of state). Visiting the store by yourself is great way at first to narrow down your preferences without outside influences. Then once you feel good about the direction you are headed in (or even feel like you've found the one!) bring your small group in. I wouldn't bring in more than 3, personally. It can be really overwhelming to get too many opinions. I'm not from your area, so I don't have any shop recommendations, but I would look at designers or styles you like and check to ensure the stores you visit carry those dresses/designers before making an appointment.

I went to 3 different bridal boutiques. 2 in one day and 1 on another day. Appointments are typically 1 to 1.5 hours. Doing more than 2 in one day would be a lot.

My best advise is to research bridal boutiques in your area. Or, if you have a specific designer you are interested in trying on, go to that designer's website and see what boutiques carry them in your area.

I went to two stores, but ended up doing 3 appointments - we re-booked at the first store for later that same afternoon since I was fairly sure I'd found my dress before I even went to the second appointment.

Each appointment was about an hour to an hour and a half, just depending on whether they had things I liked. The first place had a TON of things I loved, and seemed to really get what I was looking for. The second place, they swapped the consultant out halfway through, didn't seem to have much of what I was after and everything they suggested gave me the impression they didn't really understand what I wanted. We'd been to that same store and found heaps of things when we were looking for my sister's dress just a few months prior, so I honestly think sometimes it's just luck of the draw and who you get on the day.

I'd booked the appointments for 9:30 and 11 to give us some breathing space, but we ended up being back-to-back since the first place had so many nice options. Afterwards we went and had lunch and looked through the photos and videos, and so we could talk candidly about the dresses without the consultant there.

Then after we went back to the first shop and I tried on my dress again and eventually bought it.

I think that downtime in the middle was really, really important. The dresses can be very big and/or heavy due to the beading and layers etc, and getting in and out of them is frankly tiring, and that's before you add in the emotional side of things. I needed some time to reflect, to have a look at the photos to see how I looked to other people.

You do also get to a point where you feel like they're all nice and you could buy anything - kind of like if you go on a European holiday you get 'museum-ed out' and you stop being amazed by these fabulous churches and paintings because there are just SO.MANY. So do give yourself some space and be aware of that!

But most of all, just have fun and really enjoy it. It's one of my favourite memories of the planning journey.