Think finding the perfect wedding dress is hard? Now you need two (at least)

Last Saturday, I went wedding dress shopping with my daughter. For those not in the know, this does not mean that we spent the day casually dipping in and out of bridal dress shops, browsing and chatting and watching my daughter try on those she liked.

If this was the image you conjured, you need to snap out of it and focus – wedding dress shopping nowadays is serious and not for the faint-hearted.

The day itself started two months ago, when I made bookings at three stores – because that’s how things are done these days. A wait time for appointments, and appointments no less than 10 months out from the wedding itself. Each booking cost $80 and secured one hour of dress trying-on time.

As I’d offered to pay for the dress, I did some research on how wide I would need to open my wallet. Apparently, brides spend anywhere between $500 and $10,000 nowadays. Looking on the websites of the shops we were visiting, there would be no change from $8000. This was out of our price range, but at least we’d get a feel for what dress styles did and did not suit.

One week out, the shop assistants – oops sorry! – wedding dress consultants (WDCs) – reached out to learn about my daughter’s preferred dress styles, her wedding theme, the bridesmaid vibe and thoughts on “a second look”. Apparently, it’s also now common for the bride to have two dresses as a minimum – one for the ceremony and one for the reception. My daughter showed me one influencer who wore no less than nine. Not to be outdone, Lauren Sanchez had a total of 27 looks for her three-day wedding with Jeff Bezos. And in a plot twist, one of the dresses went missing, with conspiracy theorists suggesting there was a secret code sewn into the dress that revealed the location of a priceless Venetian treasure, and that the dress had been stolen by a historian who had dedicated his life to finding said treasure with no success.

Anyhow, I digress. Let’s go shopping!

The first appointment went well until the WDC suggested I had lied on the application form and that my daughter’s wedding was only nine months away, not the 10 I had stated. A sense of panic set in, and the trying-on became more hurried. We left shortly after with more of an idea of the styles that suited the bride, but also with an underlying anxiety that maybe we had left everything too late.

At the second store, we were greeted by a woman who looked like she was auditioning for a Codral ad. Wrapped in a scarf and with bloodshot eyes and a croaky voice, she helped my daughter into each of the dresses while I silently felt grateful for the nine months’ lead time. It was a very small shop, so there was no question we were all going to catch whatever disease she had, but at least we would have enough time to fully recover before the wedding. As the door slammed behind us, I heard the woman croak something about my daughter not even trying on the second look.

The WDC at the third store was running late – caught up with a bride who was having an argument with her mother – so we enjoyed the glass of bubbles we had expected at the previous two shops. Just as we drained the last drop, the WDC appeared and asked us how our day had been. Skipping the part about spending the last two hours in a small boutique that resembled a petri dish, we told her it had been nice.

“Nice?” She took hold of my daughter’s hands, looked her straight in the eye and spoke in a low, semi-menacing tone.

“You need to focus, or you’ll be walking down the aisle in your mother’s dressing gown! And who knows what you’ll be wearing for the second look!”

I let out an audible sigh. Not at the thought of my daughter walking down the aisle in my dressing gown or even the WDC’s tone. It was more like a valve letting off steam – releasing the pressure that had been building all day. Should it really be like this?

We left the final shop with more questions than answers. When did nine months become too short notice? Is a wedding even a wedding without the second look? Did the historian really cut up Lauren Bezos’ lost wedding dress and find the priceless Venetian treasure?

And we left without a dress. But the quest will continue. We just need to recover from the WDC flu first.

Annemarie Fleming is a freelance writer and author.

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