Tips for a fun, productive, and stress-free experience at your Wildflower Bridal appointment
So you’re ready to start shopping for your gown! Congrats! What a fun and exciting time for you! We want for this engagement season to continue to be a special and stress-free time, so below are some of our top pointers for having the most fun, relaxed, smooth and successful experience shopping for and finding your wedding gown at Wildflower Bridal:
Make sure to complete and submit your answers to the Wildflower Bridal questionnaire a few days ahead of your appointment. Your answers will help give us a solid jumping off point for your appointment.
Set a clear budget for your gown (remember that alterations are a separate fee and are not included in gown pricing). We want to make sure we are only showing you gowns you are truly comfortable buying. If other people in your life are helping contribute to your gown purchase, make sure to discuss budget with them ahead of your appointment, so that you have a clear figure for when you walk into your appointment.
Wear nude, seamless undergarments to your appointment. If you’re wearing black or magenta underwear, they may be visible under some gowns and can interfere with how much you’re loving (or not loving) the gown. While we’re on the subject of undergarments, keep in mind that you can’t wear a bra under most wedding gowns these days (but not to worry! Many gowns have amazing built-in support!).
Provide us with photos (Pinterest boards are great for this) of types/styles of gowns you’re liking. We’ll be sure to put gowns in the room for you based off the photos you provide.
Don’t start shopping for your gown until you have a venue and date booked. What you want to wear for a beach wedding may be completely different than what you want to wear for a wedding at an industrial chic brewery, so be sure to solidify your venue before your start trying on gowns.
Choose your shopping guests wisely. Be sure to invite people who, rather than giving you THEIR opinions on what THEY like the most, will instead be supportive cheerleaders when they see you light up in a gown that YOU absolutely love. It can be easy to fall into the people-pleasing trap of trying on and getting distracted by gowns others like for you instead of following your heart and choosing the gown YOU love most for you. So, if you have a loveable but bossy and alpha aunt who you think may “take over” your appointment, it’s best to leave her at home. If you need an excuse, blame it on us and our guest policy (the bride plus two guests)!
Trust your intuition. As you start to try on gowns, there will probably be several gowns you like a whole lot, but you won’t be IN LOVE with them. If you like a gown but don’t love it, it’s not the one. If you LOOOOOOVE a gown and are feeling emotions/butterflies/beautiful/special/like yourself in the gown, trust that!!
Be open-minded. Sometimes the gowns you love in photos on other people are not the ones you love the most when you try them on yourself, and that’s ok. Allow yourself to be flexible and pivot and allow yourself to embrace whatever gown you truly love when you have it on.
If we suggest trying on a gown you’re not loving on the hanger, go ahead and give it a shot. Gowns look SO different on the hanger than they do on the body, and if we are recommending you try on a gown you don’t like on the hanger, keep in mind we know what it looks like when it’s on, and that there are things about it we think you may love. Also, if you try it on and don’t love it, it’s not going to hurt our feelings one bit!
Be ready to find and say yes to your dress! Even if this is your first appointment, you’d be surprised by how many of our brides end up finding their gowns at their first (and only) gown appointments! We often hear from our customers that they are surprised by how easy it was! It’s not always like that, but it often is. Furthermore, while trying on gowns can start off as a lot of fun, we consistently hear that attending bridal appointment after bridal appointment gets exhausting and stressful, and everything starts to look the same and blend together, and the process transforms from an originally fun and exciting experience to a discouraging and stressful one. So, if you find a gown that you love, that you feel amazing in, that you can envision walking down the aisle in, and if your gut is telling you that you can stop looking, go ahead and celebrate that you’ve found your gown and proceed with ordering it, regardless of how many appointments you have had. Allow it to be an easy process if it’s meant to be one for you!