Where to Buy Your Wedding Gown.

Picked up my July/August copy of Brides recently. Am lurrving the new stuff featured, especially 'How to find The One'. Wedding gown shopping should be fun and exciting, but you do need to consider the boring but most necessary part of the experience, your budget.

If you're lucky you have 4 options when seeking out your dream dress.

High Street is going to be the most popular for many brides. Afterall, there will be quite a few fab frocks to try before you buy while lapping up the ambience of the said high street bridal salon.

Option 2 is Vintage and with many brides opting for the current vogue, vintage inspired retro look there are a few places to go. Just one thing to be aware of when purchasing your authentic vintage number, size matters. The older the dress, the smaller the sizing.

If you're lucky, you can visit a wedding designers salon and buy off-the -peg. Designers such as Vera Wang offer this service.

Last but by no means least is bespoke and reading the article in the boutique special suppliment of Brides it says that bespoke is "the dream option" which requires a BIG BUDGET.

Now, when I mentioned this to my good friend Jane of HF Couture she said (well I think it was a said, or was it more of a scream?)

"god!!!! arrrgghhhh the notion is that bespoke = v expensive is soooooooo bloody annoying! Maybe in London where all the mags except 2 are based but hey guess what? There are fabulous designs outside of the south east!!! For Heavens sake!! Linda methinks an e-mail campaign to challenge this daft notion is due!"

I have to agree, afterall my client's bespoke wedding gown has been featured in Perfect Wedding and on the forum of You and Your Wedding real-life brides and I'm sure my client would agree, the budget was far from big!

And more recently, came across this in a bridal forum from a current client in response to a brides dilema.

"Are you anywhere near West Yorkshire? I'm having mine made by Linda at Dresses at No9. I couldn't find anything I liked in the bridal shops or high street so looked into getting them made. She's done a fantastic job on them so far, they are exactly what I wanted - turquoise, knee length with loads of netting and corsetry to give a fantastic shape. I'm actually really jealous of my girls getting to wear them! She has a website, I really can't recommend her enough and the dresses are reasonably priced given all the work that goes into them."

By kind permission of Rob Booker

By kind permission of Emma Case Photography

As Jane quite rightly suggested and I have to agree wethinks a cunning plan to pomote the humble designer is on the cards.

"So, Jane." I said. "Shall we plot something together??"
"YES!!!!" I hear that scream again. "We need to. This sort of thing drives me daft! when I get 5 mins need to draft an e-mail to the editors of these magazines."

Awesome!!! We love contacting editors.

Watch this space!