I’m giving full credit to my mom for the great idea of doing a pre-shopping trip for wedding dresses a few weekends ago. I was compiling a list of stores in New Westminster, and after reading a bunch of reviews about some of the stores, I started feeling overwhelmed and confused as to where I should book an appointment. What if my perfect wedding dress is in one of those stores with a bad review? Should I just ignore the reviews and book an appointment or not risk it? Another sucky thing about wedding dress shopping is most stores are closed on Sundays and do not recommend appointments on Saturdays because that’s their busiest day. Basically, that forces you to book off a day of work to go wedding dress shopping during the middle of the week. Umm…hell no! I love shopping but it sure ain’t worth one of my precious vacation days!
That’s when my mom suggested we go check out some of the stores first, making sure their collection of dresses and customer service is up to par, before making any appointments. Smart lady, my mom. So, my mom, my older sister and I went to Columbia St. in New West (a.k.a. bridal alley) to check out some stores and see if any of them were worth taking a day off work for. We checked out about 5 stores, and only 2 of them were really worth an appointment. There were also a number of stores I refused to even go into because from what I could see from their display window, they were catering to more of a My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding type of bride. No, thank you.
While walking back to the car, my mom had another great suggestion to check out Bryan’s Bride at Brentwood Centre. The fact that it was in a mall wasn’t super appealing to me, but I thought, hey, it couldn’t hurt. Well, I’m really glad we checked it out now, because not only was the selection huge, but the service was great, everyone was super nice, and it was such a nice, open atmosphere. Definitely more of a “Say Yes to the Dress” type environment compared to the shops we saw in New West. Moreover, because it’s in a mall it follows mall hours. That means we can make an appointment on a Sunday or even on a weekday night since they are open until 9pm. Thanks to my mom, I just saved a vacation day, woohoo!
Side note, if any of you are curious as to what the average cost of a wedding dress is, it’s about $1,000-$2,000. You can definitely get a cheaper dress, I know some ladies who got their dresses for $500 and under, and if you are really keen to save money, there’s always sample sales. Those things scare the sh** out of me though. I just can’t help but picture me playing tug of war with some crazy bridezilla over a discounted designer dress and her knocking me out before she runs to the cashier to pay for it. Or maybe I’d knock her out. Either way, I just can’t see it going well.
What are your wedding dress shopping tips?
-Mo’ Houses out!
(Image: Simplelove2u.com)
