Weddings - How to Find the Perfect Dress

You you've done it. You've decided to take the big leap and get married, huh? Well there is a lot of planning to do! Between flowers, cakes, the location and all the who, what, when, where, and why's your head is probably spinning. Well let's start with the most important what. Your wedding dress!

This is what you will be planning your bridesmaids' dresses around and your flower girls. It will also help determine the type of wedding you are having. So grab and pen a paper and answer the following questions.

How much am I willing to spend, what is my budget for my dress?

1. What type of wedding am I having?
2. Is my wedding formal or simple?
3. Do I want traditional white or ivory?
4. Do I want any color in my dress to match the bridesmaids?
5. Do I want straps or not?
6. Do I want sleeves or not?

Now keep in mind the most important thing is to make a dress portfolio. Get a few bridal magazines and look at the dresses when you see one you like for whatever reason, whether it's the design or the shape, tear it out and put it in your portfolio this will help later on.

Now let's go over those answers. For number one your budget for the dress plays a big part. If you don't have a lot of money to spend but still want a designer dress, try EBay. If you don't care who makes the dress as long as you like it, then a local bridal store will be just fine. I suggest the little mom and pop bridal stores, as opposed to David's Bridal and you will see here why later.

Now, the type of wedding you are having plays a big role in your dress too. If you are getting married on the beach, you don't want a big cathedral train. So make sure you know if you are getting married in a church, on the beach, or outside. Now if you chose outside you want a shorter train, and something that has a little glitter effect to it to catch everybody's eyes as you go by! If you get married in a church then you can have the long train that is so popular in church weddings. If you are getting married on the beach you need to have a beach type dress. This means short with almost no train because of all the sand.

Now if your wedding is going to be formal that means you want a gown that has a rain or that fits the very formal gown look, the traditional wedding dress look. If you are going for a simple, no fuss wedding, a more sleek dress is what you are probably going to want. A simple dress, which looks more like a prom dress.

Next is the color, do you want traditional white or do you want ivory? Many women want the ivory because it will look better against their skin tone or even play up better in pictures. Many just don't like the color white, but still want to be traditional, so ivory is a logical choice.

The next trend you need to decide on is if you want color in your dress to match your bridesmaid dresses and the color of you wedding. Now color could be anything from a design embroidered in that color on your dress, to a tied ribbon of that color. This is slowly becoming popular for wedding dresses now.

Next is, do you want a strapless dress or if you want one with straps? You could have spaghetti straps or a halter, it's what ever you are comfortable with. You do need to decided though if you are having straps in general, what kind of straps can always come later.

If you decide to have straps you need to decide if you want sleeves or not. Many people do not want them, but some still want a very traditional wedding so sleeves are an option.

Now once you have these questions answered and you portfolio of dresses you need to start looking for 'The Dress'. Now in most cases you might already have an idea of what you are looking for in you head. So a mom and pop bridal store is where you want to go. These stores will work closer with you then say, David's Bridal and Bridal Warehouse. They will sit with you and answer all your questions and if they don't have the dress you want they will order it for you.

David's Bridal and Bridal Warehouse are too rushed and can't order anything other then what they have, and I have heard too many people having a really big issue that affected their planning there. The only down side is that mom and pop bridal store are usually a little more expensive then David's Bridal because they carry more quality brands.