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Canada-Vancouver
Help with Vancouver vendors! (including best place to buy a wedding dress?)
Hey ladies, I am now shopping for my wedding dress and have no idea where to start looking. I'm looking for a designer dress, but under $5,000. Any recommendations for the best place to buy? I'd like to buy somewhere that also does good alterations and is very reliable...
Also I was wondering if someone could help me find lighting/event design. I'm not looking for the full scale design company... but rather somewhere we could rent draperies and up-lighting for our wedding.
Lastly, we're looking to have a lounge area in our reception and want to rent furniture from somewhere. Any ideas? I'm thinking either event rental company or staging furniture company?
Thanks for your help girls!
Also I was wondering if someone could help me find lighting/event design. I'm not looking for the full scale design company... but rather somewhere we could rent draperies and up-lighting for our wedding.
Lastly, we're looking to have a lounge area in our reception and want to rent furniture from somewhere. Any ideas? I'm thinking either event rental company or staging furniture company?
Thanks for your help girls!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Help with Vancouver vendors! (including best place to buy a wedding dress?)
She's located in Chicago but actually from Vancouver, so she travels there to shoot weddings with no extra fees added to your package price.
http://www.erosephoto.com
I bought my amazing dress at Action Liquidators on Renfrew in Vancouver. The place looks a little suspect, you are definetly not walking into a chic boutique but the staff is AMAZING and all the designer dresses are at least 50% off. I found my dream dress and a few others that could have been a dream dress and spent way way less then I was expecting so those funds can go some where else! This place was recomended to me and I can't thank them enough!!
new westminster has a lot of bridal stores right on columbia st. i haven't checked any of them out, but it's worth a look
. and for any looking for a glamourous/old hollywood style venue, i'd look at the metro hall. www.themetrohall.com lots of black, white, and red decor, with lounge seating along the sides of the main hall and a separate lounge room with large red leather seating. really pretty inside!
As for decor... Debut Event Design, they have the best back drops, they can make your head table look like a million dollars!
Furniture Rentals: Fireworks Event Furniture, it is located in Burnaby (at Boundary and Marine). The place to go!
The Shops in New Westinster, tend to be expensive. If you are on a real budget, there if a women who is in White Rock, she does it out of her house called MJM Weddings. My Best friend got a dress for $100.00.
The other option is ordering from the internet or ebay.
http://www.bridalweddinggowns.ca/ has good prices. You do need to know how to accurately measure a person for fit.
Bryan's - lots and lots of selection, but I wasn;t a fan of the sales lady, she was not listening to me at all, and I have had 2 friends with issues with their alterations department with "Olga"
Champagne & Lace - decent size selection, but quite the drive from the Lower Mainland - very helpful and sweet sales lady, but did not find my dream dress here.
Lisa's - HORRIBLE service. they made us wait twice when we had appointments, were super hardcore pushy on selling the dress, and my saleslady was even a smoker and I could smell the smoke on her hands. Ended up finding my dress here and coming back 4 times to try it on, but did not buy my dress from them - they were just so rude.
Bridal Gallery - beautiful store and good service, but a little expensive for my taste - mostly because most of their dresses are made by Maggie Sottero.
Bliss New West - half new, half consignment, this store has lots of selection, but the girl who owns it is very spacey.
Tiffany's on Hastings - the lady on the phone claimed she had my dress in a sample, but when we got there (2 days later), they couldn't find it, and claimed the sample had to have been sold, and was in their other store and they couldn't show me it. We felt like they lied to us.
Isabelle's - we loved the sales girl, Kasha, but they didn't have anything in the style I wanted. She told me to call them back if I decided on a dress, that they would match/beat prices. We did end up doing that, and we ended up with a great price, and a free veil, and excellent service.
MJM Weddings - we ordered a sample dress in a size closer to mine, as my dress was only available in a sample size 8 at Lisa's, and it came in, and Mryna was fantastic, but unfortunately the material was totally different, and the style was not a close enough "knock-off" for us. If you like a particular style, but aren't super picky on the details, this is definitely the place to go. But, if you want it exactly like the designer dress, don't be bothered.
Alicia's Bridal - Bellingham - great salespeople, super friendly and helpful, and they also carry Maggie Sottero's line. All of their dresses have a picture of the dress attached to the hanger, so you get an idea of what it looks like on. Worth the drive down in my opinion.
Blush - Bellingham - mediocre. some nice stuff, but I didn't try anything on here, as they didn't have anything in my certain style.
David's - Burlington - lots of selection, and lots and lots of dresses under $1000.00, but I felt that a lot of them looked cheap, and they were mostly cookie cutter dresses, nothing really unique or special.
Bello - very unhelpful salepeople, and really small changing area/viewing area, don't try and bring a big group here. quite a few dresses though.
Sposa - very beautiful little store, with los of really fancy, unique dresses.
Bliss - Nanaimo - LOVED this store. amazing area for looking at your dress, super helpful and friendly girls own and work at this store. not a ton of selection, but all quality gowns.
Bride's Closet - Nanaimo - this store is actually in an old house, and has a ton of dresses, but they are all in such a small space, that it's really hard to go through them all. lots of quantity though and variety.
I think that about sums up my experiences!! I definitely tried on TOO MANY dresses - yes it is possible to do! I would recommend going to about 6 stores instead of 15 like myself.
[QUOTE]Not sure if you still need some info but hear is what I've learned. I went to almost every store in the lower mainland, and a few in Bellingham, and a few on the Island and tried on over 100 dresses: Bryan's - lots and lots of selection, but I wasn;t a fan of the sales lady, she was not listening to me at all, and I have had 2 friends with issues with their alterations department with "Olga" Champagne & Lace - decent size selection, but quite the drive from the Lower Mainland - very helpful and sweet sales lady, but did not find my dream dress here. Lisa's - HORRIBLE service. they made us wait twice when we had appointments, were super hardcore pushy on selling the dress, and my saleslady was even a smoker and I could smell the smoke on her hands. Ended up finding my dress here and coming back 4 times to try it on, but did not buy my dress from them - they were just so rude. Bridal Gallery - beautiful store and good service, but a little expensive for my taste - mostly because most of their dresses are made by Maggie Sottero. Bliss New West - half new, half consignment, this store has lots of selection, but the girl who owns it is very spacey. Tiffany's on Hastings - the lady on the phone claimed she had my dress in a sample, but when we got there (2 days later), they couldn't find it, and claimed the sample had to have been sold, and was in their other store and they couldn't show me it. We felt like they lied to us. Isabelle's - we loved the sales girl, Kasha, but they didn't have anything in the style I wanted. She told me to call them back if I decided on a dress, that they would match/beat prices. We did end up doing that, and we ended up with a great price, and a free veil, and excellent service. MJM Weddings - we ordered a sample dress in a size closer to mine, as my dress was only available in a sample size 8 at Lisa's, and it came in, and Mryna was fantastic, but unfortunately the material was totally different, and the style was not a close enough "knock-off" for us. If you like a particular style, but aren't super picky on the details, this is definitely the place to go. But, if you want it exactly like the designer dress, don't be bothered. Alicia's Bridal - Bellingham - great salespeople, super friendly and helpful, and they also carry Maggie Sottero's line. All of their dresses have a picture of the dress attached to the hanger, so you get an idea of what it looks like on. Worth the drive down in my opinion. Blush - Bellingham - mediocre. some nice stuff, but I didn't try anything on here, as they didn't have anything in my certain style. David's - Burlington - lots of selection, and lots and lots of dresses under $1000.00, but I felt that a lot of them looked cheap, and they were mostly cookie cutter dresses, nothing really unique or special. Bello - very unhelpful salepeople, and really small changing area/viewing area, don't try and bring a big group here. quite a few dresses though. Sposa - very beautiful little store, with los of really fancy, unique dresses. Bliss - Nanaimo - LOVED this store. amazing area for looking at your dress, super helpful and friendly girls own and work at this store. not a ton of selection, but all quality gowns. Bride's Closet - Nanaimo - this store is actually in an old house, and has a ton of dresses, but they are all in such a small space, that it's really hard to go through them all. lots of quantity though and variety. I think that about sums up my experiences!! I definitely tried on TOO MANY dresses - yes it is possible to do! I would recommend going to about 6 stores instead of 15 like myself.
Posted by SolanaGreen[/QUOTE]
I agree with you on Bryan's Bridal - they had lots of selection and were a good place to start for me, but the sales girl I had was not very into it - she didn't have any suggestions and wasn't that helpful, though she wasn't rude or anything either.
Agree again on Sposa, I tried on a few different styles there.
I had a completely different experience at Lisa's Bridal though. I was a walk-in and they gave me an appointment on the spot, loved the service and the salesgirl was really helpful and right away figured out what I was looking for and had suggestions. I went back for a second appointment and didn't have to wait at all and had the same awesome service, and ended up buying my dress here. I have no idea about the alterations though since I got these done in Toronto.
Bella Sposa in New West- quite affordable, smaller selection but some very beautiful dresses. The sales people were lovely, approachable and low pressure.
Sposa Wedding World (next door)- tends to be more expensive than Bella Sposa, but still quite a few dresses in the 1000-2000 range, nice sales staff, and a fairly good selection (and this is where I found my dress!).
Davids Bridal: I actually found some cute dresses here, the quality is less than most of the designer dresses, but some are still very nice! Worth a try if you are on a budget. Sales people were quite helpful, and they do sales on the spot (so if you are looking for a last minute dress this isn't a bad place to go), as well as the traditional order it in type deal.