NER: Wedding Dress Shopping

shanliann

Hi Ladies!

Can you suggest decent websites to dress shop on? I have a friend getting married in August. She found a few pics online of dress styles she liked, and we live in the middle of iowa so we have 1 davids bridal and 2 little no name dress stores and she has found nothing. We aren't against maybe road trippin a couple hours away but before doing that, we would like to do some online browsing and possibly purchasing. A lot of times I end up finding dresses from china and I'm not too interested in going that route!!

Thanks in advance for letting me pick your brains!!  Have a good weekend!

flantastic

Weddington Way was good because we could see a lot of dress styles, and my BMs who were scattered everywhere could find and give input on styles they thought they liked. Then they were able to try on and order their choice from wherever the nearest salon to them was. You can also order them through the website, which is reputable but not foolproof (as with all custom online purchasing).

JCbride2015

Are you looking for bridal dresses or bridesmaid dresses?  I read your question as looking for a bridal dress but I'm not sure.

You could try Alfred Angelo or BHLDN online.  Also try department stores-- I know Nordstrom lists their bridal gowns on the website.

shanliann

yes! dress for the bride!

flantastic

JCbride2015 said:

Are you looking for bridal dresses or bridesmaid dresses?  I read your question as looking for a bridal dress but I'm not sure.

You could try Alfred Angelo or BHLDN online.  Also try department stores-- I know Nordstrom lists their bridal gowns on the website.

Ah, yeah, now it looks like trying to find the friend's wedding dress.

CMGragain

The middle of Iowa?  What's wrong with the shops in Des Moines?  http://www.yellowpages.com/des-moines-ia/bridal-shops

It is impossible to choose the perfect dress from an on line photo.  You need to try the dresses on in person.  I believe Shaffer's Bridal in Jordan Creek Mall is excellent.  I went to school with the former owner.

lilacck28

JCrew! And I second BHLDN/ Nordstroms/ other department stores.

shanliann

CMGragain said:

The middle of Iowa?  What's wrong with the shops in Des Moines?  http://www.yellowpages.com/des-moines-ia/bridal-shops

It is impossible to choose the perfect dress from an on line photo.  You need to try the dresses on in person.  I believe Shaffer's Bridal in Jordan Creek Mall is excellent.  I went to school with the former owner.

I'm sorry that was supposed to say middle of no-where iowa. We are about 3 hours from des moines! One of the places we may consider for a day trip if it come to that!

WhatawagSBNy

What you need to know is what lines (Maggie Sottero, Mori Lee and their 6 name designers like Sylvia Tolli, Jim Helm Group, Casablanca). or similar are carried by any store anywhere that you would be willing to travel to. Call and ask, and ask if they carry all sizes or if they would bring in a particular dress or dresses you are interested in, in your size for try on visits.

Then you can look on line at the designer website.
Designer websites have links which say when a trunk show is coming to a bridal salon near you. And by calling any salon, they will tell you what day or two of the month they are hosting a trunk show.

Trunk shows are travelling racks of dresses by one or a small group of designers that go town to town with try-on samples, usually every two sizes, if you have never seen one.

In big cities, shops have enough customers for it to be worthwhile for them to invest in a whole lot of samples for try-on samples, expensive because sometimes they are damaged and never sold, the shop eats the cost.

Here in the boonies of New Hampshire and adjacent Quebec, the two larger shops, still small by city standards will bring in any dress you want and have picked out on a website, from any designer they take orders from, with 3 days to a week's notice. Usually a maximum of 3 or 4 dresses. They have an arrangement with either a central warehouse distributor or a small group of shops, and Federal Express.
This may be true in IOWA too. Otherwise small shops cannot compete.

Casadena

>The middle of Iowa?  What's wrong with the shops in Des Moines?  http://www.yellowpages.com/des-moines-ia/bridal-shops

It is impossible to choose the perfect dress from an on line photo.  You need to try the dresses on in person.  I believe Shaffer's Bridal in Jordan Creek Mall is excellent.  I went to school with the former owner. Sib: this is where I got my dress and it was a fantastic experience! Also, there is a Davids bridal in Des moines, Stacey's is great, and there are fantastic specialty in the east village area of downtown in addition to a wonderful shop in ankeny. Bridal shops in Iowa that I visited were all fantastic!!

augbride87

I also agree Schaffers is great I don't know where you are but I've heard good things about Hope's in Atkins too.

CMGragain

Three hours is nothing.  When we shopped for daughter's dress in the Baltimore/Washington area, we spent four days driving around in city traffic.  Road trip!

ddoane

Plan a day trip!  Three hour drive to try on dresses is much better than buying something you love online but not on your body!  Esp if you can't return it!

brooklynscott

I would suggest Loehmanns they have dresses online from $350-$500 but 1 thing they do not do returns so she should make sure of her size and get it a little bigger just incase its not an exact fit or another suggestion would've go to a bridal shop try on that designers dress to check the cut then order it. They have beautiful dresses

doeydo

Best Bridal Prices is a legitimate website: http://www.bestbridalprices.com/

However, I would personally want to go try on dresses in a shop and find my dress that way, not by just praying that the dress I ordered online looks good on me.

shanliann

Thanks guys for all the tips! We would only buy online If we could return. Otherwise at least with these additional websites she can hopefully find styles she likes and then we can go from there to see where carries those dresses! This is a 2nd marriage for both so she wanted dress shopping to be sort of "simple" and not have to do deal with all the stress and drama of road tripping, etc, but she will if it comes to that!!

Also to whoever suggest Hope's, if it is the same as the Hope's that is in Davenport, Iowa,  wouldn't step foot in that store if they were the only dress store on earth!!