I tried on dresses for the first time this weekend...I went to an Alfred Angelo store (in Columbus, OH). The store's website was beautiful, a lot of dress selection (for brides and moms), and prices reasonable. However, the store experience was not good. I had a list of 8 dresses I wanted to see. Two were discontinued (even though they were still on the website) and two only came in size 20 (I'm a size 4). None of the dresses fit because I'm short, but they made no effort to help me visualize what the dresses should look like. They didn't even lace up the back of the dresses all the way, so when I came out of the dressing room, my underwear was showing (and I wore hot pink that day). The woman helping me with the dresses was not friendly.
Maybe other stores are better. (Hopefully) But beware of the Columbus one.