5 Things to Know When Buying Your Wedding Dress – Perfect Fit For Your Dream Wedding!
Staffed by professionals with the knowledge and service to ensure a flawless gown, wedding dress, Bridal’s by Roma has compiled a few insights to keep in mind before embarking on your dress experience.
The perfect wedding dress is so much more than just a dress; it is an extension of who you are, a reflection of the venue, the time of year, and that perfect day. The perfect gown inspires. It’s exciting! So why should the experience of choosing and customizing the dress of your dreams be any different? For more than sixty years, Bridals by Roma has helped Brides find their dream gown and avoid pitfalls with a peerless commitment to service, selection, and workmanship. These decades of experience have taught us a thing or two or three, and we’ve compiled a few to help guide you in the process.
1. Choose Professionals with Patience
Gracious listeners who are both accommodating and knowledgeable make the best companions in your wedding dress experience. A joyful attitude and an easy smile help make every meeting, alteration and fitting trouble-free and exciting. It’s worth everything and more. As opposed to discount stores, online vendors and big department stores where you are just another customer, you’ll need to choose a shop with seasoned seamstresses who know and expect that the perfect gown can take time.
Search as you might, until you try it on, you don’t know how a gown will look on you. Maybe the bodice didn’t look quite right or the style didn’t radiate. Should you try a different designer? Would a different gown in the same line be better? What about customization, or a new fabric to craft a couture gown? How much is just enough? How much is too much? What worked and what didn’t? Finding perfection can take time and that is why each fitting is an experience all its own.
So whatever it takes, find experienced seamstresses that have the patience to relish your sense of discovery with calm professionalism and giddy excitement. Choose untested or off-the-shelf retailers and you may not find them. Choose Bridals by Roma and rest assured, you will.
2. Keep an Open Mind
You’ve pored over hundreds of dresses, your eyes buzzing with each turn of the page, each click of the mouse. But should you find in that first fitting that what you saw on the page isn’t working once worn, let the professionals guide you. Not only will they help identify your preferences and clarify details, but mixing and matching styles and features amidst the myriad of possibilities takes experience.
Our brides come in with ideas, and we encourage that! Many times, however, you may not be aware of just how much your dress can be customized. Most shops will provide an array of alterations and accessories, but Bridals by Roma sees every gown as an open canvas. Couture gown design experience is our specialty, and we can craft a gown all your own. Do you want a different fabric to match the style you’ve seen? Would you prefer a Portrait neckline on a dress that doesn’t have it? Look to Bridals by Roma. We take pride in our couture approach to wedding dress design, and this means drawing on our vast experience to introduce you to all the possibilities. Let us help you and we guarantee your wedding dress will be one that will inspire for years to come.
3. Let your body type guide you
Knowing your figure will help make the most of finding that perfect dress with your seamstress. And while guidelines exist for you to follow, no one should choose what you want except you. The following are suggestions and are not to be taken as rigid rules; every bride is different.
- Hourglass shape: a slim waist with a balanced bust and hips. If you are fortunate to have this shape, you have many options, but Mermaid style dresses (sheath gown to the knees, with a flare out), pure sheath, or gowns with horizontal seams and styles, (Ball Gown for example), all take advantage of your flowing curves.
- Pear shape: an attractive upper body with a more pronounced bottom. The key here is to emphasize your face, neck, shoulders, and bust. Gowns for this shape let your top do the talking and let your most attractive features shine. A-line and empire styles are good choices, while off-shoulder or strapless necklines help lend prominence to the upper half of your body. Fishtail designs and Mermaid style dresses can also work incredibly well.
- Apple shape: a truncal upper body with narrow lower parts, almost the opposite of the pear shape. So if you’re bigger in the middle, an A-line or an empire can easily disguise or hide your stomach. Also possible are sheer waistlines, or princess-cut can give you a sexier look but can conceal as well.
- Busty shape: Just as it sounds, dresses here help craft a more flowing silhouette and can use halter necklines, which narrows your shoulders while making you bust look smaller. V-neck and wrap neck are choices to consider as well. And unless you want to push your bust out even more (which you can certainly choose to do!), you’ll want to skip sweetheart or strapless necklines.
Here at Bridals by Roma, we are magicians in our craft. We can accentuate and customize any style to take advantage of the dress that will be perfect for what you want for your day. So let us help you get exactly what you want, and we promise you’ll look and feel exceptional.
4. Accessorize properly!
Veils, tiaras, jewelry, flowers, and gloves; they all exist to complement the gown. The most beautiful gown in the world will be missing something without the right accessories. Too much can look gaudy. Too little, and it can appear plain or as if you look like you are not whole. If it doesn’t complement the style and silhouette, even the venue or time of year, you’ll lose out on that perfect gown. Bridals by Roma provides every possibility at your fingertips to try on and ensure you find the perfect accessories. Again, details are everything. Tiaras, for example, have grown more popular, but there are hundreds of styles. Even wearing them at the wrong angle can affect your look. And choosing the right jewelry is an art all its own, while gloves and flowers require a deft, subtle touch.
Complementing the perfect dress is a rewarding challenge, and our professional seamstresses at Bridals by Roma bring experience and timely relevance to ensure you look and feel every inch the princess.
5. Your wedding dress doesn’t need to be bright red to be unique!
Unique weddings dresses are not only possible at Bridals by Roma, but they are also our specialty. But what makes a unique wedding dress? Princess Diana’s dress, crafted from silk taffeta, and complemented with embroidery, lace, pearls, and not to mention a truly elongated train, is certainly memorable, and in many cases, (price, for one!) comes to mind, but is it truly unique? Such classic design elements work wonders when incorporated with more modern fare.
Kate’s dress used such classic elements, the lacework, with hand-cut flowers, along with a trim, snug fit that accentuated her figure. But to get your unique gown, you’ll need to see the stylistic elements that make up the dress to start your own search for a truly stand-out gown. And remember everyone has seen Kate’s dress. Doing something unique, yet stylish and with traditional or modern elements is one of the most exciting challenges we share with each and every bride! What should you keep in mind?
Most often your first thought is the theme and season. Is it a summer wedding or do you plan on letting fall’s colors set the stage? Will it be a classic cathedral or a sandy beach where you share your vows? Knowing the stylistic theme of your wedding is often a great way to start and make your gown you. But other ideas exist as well. Some brides search for their religious or ethnic backgrounds for inspiration. If this is you, and you simply can’t find elements that you can’t find elsewhere, Bridals by Roma can customize your gown. Jewels placed just so, or accents around or down the dress, if artfully done can do wonders.
Color is the next choice to consider with crafting a one-of-a-kind gown. While switching the off-white or pink for a dark green may be good for some brides, colored highlights or accents, sashes with color, colored lace or beaded embroidery can provide a flattering, yet tasteful way to create something with a bit of daring. All in all, your gown can be a canvas in the right hands; you only need to provide the excitement and imagination to be different and your wedding dress will be as unique as you!
We hope that these tips can help you prepare for your wedding and your gown. Crafting it can be an experience that contributes to all the celebration and excitement of your new life. Why not help commemorate this new chapter in your life with a gown infused with our knowledge, service, and experience? Let us create and design the wedding dress you’ve always dreamed of! We know brides have high expectations – we’ve known for over sixty years! So come in and talk with one our trained and courteous professionals as we help you build a wedding dress that you will cherish for years to come.
Getting the Right Fit In Wedding Dresses
Checking out wedding dresses but have a few pounds that you’d like to shed before the big day? Many brides struggle in the final weeks and months, trying to lose weight and keep it off so they’ll be able to fit into their perfect dress – a dress that was ordered in the bride’s ideal size, and not their real one. Unfortunately, it’s typical that the size is simply too small, and no matter how much dieting and exercising they do, they just can’t fit into it. So what happens? That perfect dress is left to collect dust in the closet while the bride has to make a frantic dash to a bridal store, hoping to find a replacement that is as good. This wastes precious time and tends to be incredibly expensive since the bride can’t make an economical decision with only moments to spare. A load of money is spent on a dress that probably won’t be as nice as the one hanging in the closet.
Don’t fall into this trap!
Never, ever order a dress in a size you hope to be by the wedding day. Always order it in the size that you are at the time you buy it. You may be committed to your diet, but there’s no way to know if you’ll actually be able to drop the weight, since as we all know, life gets in the way. It’s much easier for a tailor to take a dress in if you do lose the weight. On the other hand, the tailor might not be able to do anything at all to let it out, so play it safe and order your size, not the one you hope to be. And don’t forget to make an appointment with your tailor as soon as you get your dress (or even before if you know the exact time it’ll arrive). Sometimes, it takes ages to book a good tailor, and more than one appointment may be needed.
Once you’ve gone for a fitting and had all of the adjustments done, try to maintain your weight so that there aren’t any unexpected adjustments required.