Wedding Dress - Designer or High Street

[poppy160]

I'm a size 16, and want to lose alot more weight for when I walk down the aisle in 6 months. My dilemma is, if I go designer, I have to have a size 18, and I need to order it ASAP because it will take 3-5 months to be delivered, and I'll have to stop trying to lose weight. Ordering a size 14 would put too much pressure on me and it's a bit risky, if I'm still too big then that's it..They can't make it bigger and I won't be able to return it.

The other option is to wait until I've slimmed and then buy from the high street, like Monsoon or something, as it'll be too late to buy a dress from a designer shop.

I really really want a gorgeous dress for my big day..but I really really want to be slim aswell. I don't know what to do What would you do?

 

[A&J]

You can get just as gorgeous dresses (with the smaller price tag ) on the high street. My SIL (to be) wanted a designer dress and found the dress then just happened to walk down a high street and saw more or less the same dress ALOT cheaper! yes it was not designer but she LOVES it.

I am very jealous of everyone who is getting married I LOVED sorting things out and finding stuff. I did ask DH to renew the vows so I could do it all again but we had SOOOOO much trouble with MIL that he/we wont

ETA... I would keep up the diet and keep looking around you will find your dream dress

 

[valentine]

Remember I am replying as an overweight person who has not got round to arranging her wedding primarily 'cos I don't want to be a fat bride.

Go for the cheaper dress hon - you'll look gorgeous in whatever you wear and often with the more expensive dresses, you are paying for the name. I love Monsoon/Karen Millen/Coast dresses for weddings or you could consider having one made to measure if you can find someone cheap enough?

Valentine Xxx

 

[Iggle20]

From experience.......diet and then get your dress!!!!!!! It's an expensive mistake to make if you get it wrong, believe me!!

Also....it's ok to go with a cheaper option, I paid close to £2k for my dress and for what, I wore it through the ceremony and dinner then got changed, so £2,000 on something I wore about 6 hours if I'm lucky, perhpas closer to 5 hours. If I were to do it again I'd get something from Monsoon (or similar) there are some gorgeous options out there on a high street budget, even BHS have a nice mix and match section so you could have a full skirt and bodice or a fishtail skirt and spaghetti strap top etc.

 

[mum2A&L]

im getting mine from http://www.sexyher.co.uk (if they still have the one i want in may when i am going to have to order it). im not going for a full wedding dress (it isn't a big wedding), and i can get the one i want made to measure for under £100!!


If i was having a bigger wedding, i would have gone for this one though:

http://www.sexyher.co.uk/product-WD7029-215.html


but i am going for this one:

http://www.sexyher.co.uk/product-CO8805-205.html


Im going to get it made to measure as im not sure what size i will be. Going to order it end of may giving me 3 months to lose as much baby weight as i can (i aim to be a comfy 16 by july....). If i carry on losing weight, i have family that are handy with sowing machines


(and im quite tempted by this one for alice http://www.sexyher.co.uk/product-FG7625-250.html# )

 

[Suzie and Faith]

I bought mine off of a sale rack! £800 down to £325.
It fitted near enough perfect.

And I felt like a princess

 

[holly;]

i'd wait and buy a 'highstreet' dress if i were you.

you will at least then know that it is going to fit you for your big day, and by the sounds of it you will be happier in yourself if you had lost weight. all this talk of you saying you want to be slimmer for your wedding day.. you are obviously dieting because in your head it's what you want to do, don't stop dieting and risk getting that feeling on your wedding day of 'i wish i'd lost weight'

 

[Charlie:-)]

I had a designer wedding dress and I was slimming. When I ordered it they gave me a date to go and be measured which was the very latest date I could order the dress for it to be made in time for my wedding. I ordered it at the beginning of April and I married in July, the dress came in June and I had one fitting and the dress was then taken in and I tried it on again when I picked it up to make sure the alterations were right which was a week before the wedding. I was told that the dress could have been taken in 2 dress sizes once it had been made.

So I would go designer and try and arrange something similar to what I did, you get the best of both worlds, designer dress and slim

 

[NickyB]

Imagine five years time looking back at your pics, would you regret the wrong dress, or being bigger than you'd prefer? I wish I'd lost weight before mine :/

 

[LouF]

You can have both, my dress was a maggie sottero (didn't know until after I had tryed it on) and it was in the sale it should have been about a grand but got it for 500 ish. Good luck with the diet and hope you have a fab day, at the end of the day it's nice to have a fab dress but you only wear it once, I so wish I could wear mine again but I think would get some funny looks flouncing round Asda in!!!!!

 

[beanie]

I would go highstreet but then I really don't see the point on spending a fortune on a dress that you will wear for a few hours and then shove in an attic. Oxfam also do designer dresses for a fraction of the price too - so you save money and support a great cause too.

 

[mrs_tommo22]

I did high street - debenhams in fact and and had a gorgeous dress!

Heres mine!

The dress was 75 quid - thing round my shoulders was 50 and for my tiara i paid something like 15 quid, so i had a budget dress but i felt amazing on the day!

Why buy desinger when high street are more reasonobly priced and you can put the money elsewhere, plus were in a recession- - be careful of your pennies!!!

 

[Magic Monkey]

I did high street and designer!! Mine was designers at Debenhams, by Maria Grachvogel and it was beautiful. It cost less than £200 and I felt like a princess. I tried on LOADS of dresses and the one I bought was as nice as others that were 10 times the price. (my parents were paying so I could have had an expensive one)

 

[muppetmummy]

I have several stone to lose before I fit into my dress and I'm running out of time! Its an ex shop sample I bought on ebay for £70 though so if it doesn't fit I can always sell it on and look for something else. It probably would have cost me around £500 if I bought it brand new and I can't afford to pay that much for a dress anyway.

I'm leaving it till as late as I can before getting it altered if it does fit. Its a two piece full length skirt and lace up bodice so I'm hoping it will be quite staight forward to alter, and hopefully because I need the length taken up several inches from the waist it will give me an extra few inches around the waist if I need it!

If it doesn't fit in time I will be looking for something from Monsoon, Coast or Debenhams I think.

 

[poppy160]

Thank you so much everyone, you've made me feel so much better!!

I think my plan will be to wait until I've lost more weight, then look at sale rails and high street stores to see what I can find I think I would be happier being slimmer than having a big expensive dress. My Mum is giving me £1000 for it but TBH I'd rather see it go a bit further than just my dress.

Again, than you so much

 

[Kittykins]

Find a local designer/dressmaker and explain your dilemma. They can help you with a design that will be stunning but easy to alter, will make it up late, and slightly bigger, and then will do all the alterations the week before.


I hated all the designer dresses I saw (I had the opposite problem, I was a 6-8 (not any more, obviously!) and all the sample dresses in the showrooms were size 16 so I couldn't begin to guess how they'd look. Most dresses came in size 10 smallest, occasionally 8s, and would have required lots of alterations that would have ruined the lines (and cost an awful lot more too).

I found a local wedding dress designer/dressmaker and drew a pic of what I wanted. She then drew a better pic, took more than 30 different measurements, suggested a couple of details that would suit my shape (i.e. enhance my bust!) and then got out the fabric books. So I got to choose everything, from the materials (silk and lace) to the embellishments (beads and pearls sewn onto the lace). We even designed a little bolero jacket in the same material as the skirt (I had a two-piece dress) to keep my shoulders covered in church. This was all done pretty late in the day - I saw her for the first time in May, the wedding was at the beginning of August - and had my first fitting in July. All the adjustments were made a week before the wedding, when she tightened everything up a bit more - she was leaving an inch of slack 'just in case' until then.

The design I went for allowed some change in shape anyway - I had a corset top with a ribbon lace-up back and panel, so that could be tightened/let out. And the separate skirt meant the waist was really easy to take in. A good dressmaker will advise you on tricks to make things easy if you're dieting whilst still looking good - and if she's local, lots of alterations can be left till the very last minute. It's also a lot cheaper - I'd been looking at £3500 dresses in designer shops but still couldn't find one I liked, but this cost me around £500 for the skirt, top and jacket, and suited me so much better than anything I'd seen.

 

[happy-chick]

Depending on the dress/style a good seamstress (sp?) will be able to alter your dress for you if you loose some weight, its also worth bearing in mind that they have extra material in the seams so they can also be taken out too. I got married at 6 months pregnant therefore had to have my dress altered quite alot Mine was by Alfred Angelo and I paid £400 for it then £150 alterations x

 

[Jaded Diamond]

I got mine from a local bridal shop.
At the time I picked my dress I'd recently found out I was pregnant so I opted for a bridesmaids dress that dropped under my boobs but done in gold & ivory. Unfortunately we miscarried, but they altered the dress a couple of times (as when it gets closer you naturally loose weight through worrying)
And because i'd picked one of the bridesmaids dresses it was only £200 as opposed to the proper white dress i fell in love with lol.
I loved the visits to the bridal shop for the fittings and them complimenting my weightloss with laughs about having to take it in again lol.
I bet you'll look gorgeous no matter which option you go for. xx

 

[Sarah&Braydon]

personally i think i would wait then see wot i could get of the rack.
my best mate got married two years ago and fell pregnant a month before the wedding, she tried her dress on 2 weeks before the wedding and her boobs had grown so much that the old dress didnt fit so she rushed out to a wedding shop and got a £1000 dress reduced to £385 then did a sob story about not having much money etc and they reduced it more to £300 lol lucky cow

 

[angelcake89]

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