Destination Wedding Dress and Tux Dilemma

Maxamille · December 2013

After you've planned to have a destination wedding, should you purchase your wedding dress and rent/buy tux from the destination location? I ask this question because I know with travel and shipping, items can get lost. Can anyone give me some ideas or share an experience related to this quandary?

misssunshine17 · December 2013

MY SIL just brought her dress on as her carry on item. JetBlue hung it for her, it was no problem. Can you easily travel to the destination? Seems like that would be a waste of money in flights for shopping and fittings

16maybeless · December 2013

Maxamille said:

After you've planned to have a destination wedding, should you purchase your wedding dress and rent/buy tux from the destination location? I ask this question because I know with travel and shipping, items can get lost. Can anyone give me some ideas or share an experience related to this quandary?

Call your airline ahead of time and find out the configuration of the plane. Some have closets, often in first or business class, but some do not. If yours doesn't, you should look into priority boarding (such as JetBlue's Even More Speed product) so that you can board early and guarantee overhead-bin space. I would highly recommend against checking your wedding gown. Some people have gowns/tuxes shipped ahead to the hotel, but that can also be risky, as hotel staffs are large and can misplace something.

southernbelle0915 · December 2013

I think it depends on your dress. I've heard of everything from packing it to buying a seat for it.

@ohannabelle - you worked for an airline, right? You had a really good post about this a few weeks ago...

WedinVolterra · December 2013

I also flew with my dress as a carryon. For the first flight, the stewardess put my gown in the first class closet. For the second leg of our flight, the closet was full but there was an empty seat in first class, so my dress go its own seat. Sadly they did not bump me up to first class so I could join the gown ;p

I put it in two dress bags so that if the outer one ripped for some reason, there would be another layer of protection. The gown made it to our destination in great shape.

Inkdancer · December 2013

WedinVolterra said:

I also flew with my dress as a carryon. For the first flight, the stewardess put my gown in the first class closet. For the second leg of our flight, the closet was full but there was an empty seat in first class, so my dress go its own seat. Sadly they did not bump me up to first class so I could join the gown ;p

I put it in two dress bags so that if the outer one ripped for some reason, there would be another layer of protection. The gown made it to our destination in great shape.

I am totally going to do this when I bring my gown home from my mom's house.

daveANDkristen · December 2013

Where is your DW? Does the location have a number of options if you wanted to buy your wedding attire off the rack when you arrive?

WiscDoll322 · December 2013

We flew Delta and, when boarding, all the flight attendants knew what was in the white bag and all were more than willing to hang it for me in the closet. We did not call ahead, but my H has Medallion status so we luckily had priority boarding. The biggest challenge was that the closet was only tall enough to fit something about the length of a long jacket. Thankfully, my mom added a loop of ribbon on the outside bottom of the bag and we folded the dress in half so it would fit. When we arrived at our destination, we pressed the dress (and all of my H's and GMs attire) and all was well.

Congrats! DWs are awesome.

Jen4948 · December 2013

Is it possible for you to ship the dress ahead and have it pressed and cleaned when you get there?

WiscDoll322 · December 2013

Personally, I would not ship ahead. A friend shipped her wedding dress via UPS last year to their destination. She purchased a box from UPS that they recommended for wedding dresses and UPS packed it and her H's suit and shipped it to their destination. When it got the destination, the box was torn and her dress was dirty and damaged. Her H's suit was OK, but her dress was in need of repair and some cleaning. Thankfully, her mom was able to mend and clean, but it was still an extra source of stress in the days leading up to her wedding.

Carry on if at all possible!

Jen4948 · December 2013

WiscDoll322 said:

Personally, I would not ship ahead. A friend shipped her wedding dress via UPS last year to their destination. She purchased a box from UPS that they recommended for wedding dresses and UPS packed it and her H's suit and shipped it to their destination. When it got the destination, the box was torn and her dress was dirty and damaged. Her H's suit was OK, but her dress was in need of repair and some cleaning. Thankfully, her mom was able to mend and clean, but it was still an extra source of stress in the days leading up to her wedding.

Carry on if at all possible!

I shipped a bridesmaid dress ahead once and it arrived just fine. I'm sorry it didn't work out for your friend.

TerriHugg · December 2013

I flew Jet Blue and there wasn't a closet. However, my parents flew United so they took my dress and hubby's suit and put it in the closet on their flight. It was no problem at all.

WinstonsGirl · December 2013

I flew with my dress. I laid it flat in the overhead as there was no closet on the plane. DH put his suit in his suitcase. My steamer did both my dress and DH's suit the day of the wedding. I would never chance airlines or postal services losing or wrecking my dress so it came with me always.

Someone on the Hawaii board vacuum packed her dress and put it in her carry on. The material was such that it didn't wrinkle much and she had it steamed too when she got there. Good for space

Maxamille · April 2014

That was a thought of mine, but my concern is if it get's lost. I should carry it on with me.

jalyndani · April 2014

I've been on many many flights where there were bridal gowns hanging in the closet. American Airlines planes have them for sure.

(When I went to Hawaii years ago, there was an entire bridal party on my flight, plus a total of 3 brides. American got ALL of the brides' gowns in the closets w/o crushing them. I was impressed.)

Jells2dot0 · April 2014

This is an old post, but there is a very similar post on the Destination Wedding board. I had a heated moment with a flight attendant and my dress and I booked a first class ticket. There is no perfect answer for this question, but the other post is more extensive.

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