To think choosing your wedding dress is not the magical experience I have been peddled?!

[HarrietKettleWasHere]

I chose my wedding dress this weekend.

I don't feel joy. I feel relief that I may never have to go through that experience again

I went on my own because I always shop on my own. I am no virginal slip of a bride that I thought I required a chaperone (32 and well...I had a lot of fun in my youth ) and I know what I like. Also I'm NC with my mother at the moment and my best friend just blindly says I look lovely in everything, even the time I looked like a Creme brûlée at our sixth form prom.

I paid £10 before I was permitted to look upon the dresses. This was supposed to include a glass of fizz, but the lady had run out, so I had a tap water.

The lady was nice, but even though I told her what I wanted, she brought me lots of netty monstrosities 'just to wow' me they did not wow me. I looked like the toilet roll lady my Nan used to have in her loo.

I normally wear a size 10. Some of the dresses in a 14 wouldn't do up why do they cut them so tiny?! I have a little bit of Christmas pork to lose but still...

I found the dress I loved. The price tag was £1800 I'm wondering whether to just put a down payment on it, which seems like a good ideajust so I never have to repeat this process ever again I am horrified at that amount of money, but it was truly the only one I thought 'that looks amazing even though my hair is stuck to my face, I'm not wearing the right underwear and I've just bloody well had enough'

It looks like it's a lovely magical experience on TV!

When my friend got married last year, she went to a place where you ring a little bell in your changing room, to signify you had found 'the one' (dress, not fiancé, I presume ) and all the other brides to be would come and ooh and ahh at you.

I unfortunately burst out in scoffing laughing when she told me that, and she didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. So while that was not the experience I was aiming for, I was hoping for...oh, I don't know a bit of enchantment! fizz would have helped

Was I expecting too much?

Haha! Sounds about right . Do you know the make / model of the dress? You can probably find it cheaper elsewhere (ex-display etc). It's horrendous, I sympathise.

I hated every minute of it.

It's all part of the wedding industry bollocks.

Is that you Meghan?

It’s crazy! And don’t get me started on refusing to say which designer made the dress

I liked my wedding dress and felt good in it but I never got that supposed special moment of just knowing it was the one - it was just a dress after all.

Good luck with your wedding OP!

I bought my wedding dress on eBay, I really couldn't be arsed with the pretentious bridal shop bollocks having been through it previously as a bridesmaid.

Dreading shopping for mine. Friends and dd and dm desperate to come with me.

I just want one that I can get my boobs in without looking like a wench, that doesn't cost more than £200 quid and that I can wear a normal bra in.

Do you have a Wed2be you can get to? That's where I am heading.

It was awful. After a horrid experience where I took mum and bridesmaids and sister, I then tried other options.
I tried to buy one off eBay but failed.
I ended up in a bridal shop that had an end of line sale. They had 3 in my size. I bought one that day thankfully. There is nothing fun about it.

at the bell ringing. I would have cringed my arse off.

It's all fucking ridiculous - I didn't find it like that at all. Mind you, I took my housemate's mum dress shopping with me because my own mum lived overseas so I am probably not the right person to ask on this

It's not about the dress, it's about the marriage after all!

Sorry but I'm laughing at your friend getting the hump about you laughing at her dress shopping experience .

I got mine online. 'Light In The Box'. Fantastic. You can message them and give your personal measurements for made to measure and have them alter the style from the pic. Got all three bridesmaids dresses from them as well. Literally a rainbow of colours and styles to choose from. It was stupidly easy!

I ended up at a really lovely place. Not pushy and under £1000.
I was dreading it before and although I like my dress, I don't have a real emotional attachment to it.
Yes with the sizes- I had to go up two sizes although that is also due to most dresses not suporting D + chest.

Supporting

No, no it isn't. And just wait till you hear what you'll have to pay for alterations! I think alterations were half the cost of my wedding dress for me.

I shopped alone for my dress, too. My mother was on the other side of the country (I'm in the US, so that's 3000 miles away). My friends were and are much more likely to have an opinion on a new gaming computer than on a wedding dress.

That's a very expensive dress. I was in a much lower budget category than that, and I thought mine was expensive...

So it was nothing like it is on Say Yes to the Dress?

Hang on WHAT. I'll be paying for alterations on top of that?!! How much?

I had to google in the changing room for the bloody price!

She kept saying 'but if you've fallen in love what does it matter?'

www.lightinthebox.com/c/wedding-dresses_11

scroll down and look at the prices, they're lovely! :)

Thanks Laiste! Checking that out now.

My experience was more in the middle; I chose which dresses to try on and the ladies were lovely; not pushing me towards any particular style. I went to another shop where I was told I looked great when I really didn’t
If I was you I’d look some other places even if you go back to the first shop.

Oh god I hated it. I loathe clothes shopping at the best of times. I hardly ever find anything I like, and when I do it doesn't fit or looks shit on me. Wedding dress shopping was no better...in fact every disappointment was amplified by the sheer anti-climax.

After my first attempt I sat in the car and cried for 20 minutes.

I made my own. I'd rather eat my own liver with a blunt teaspoon than do any of the things that are supposed to make wedding dress purchasing "fun".

I backed out before even getting to the shop stage. (Well, I will be going to one to humour a bridesmaid, but she's having a tough time).

I'm getting a top off Etsy and a skirt off Amazon, and thanking my lucky stars I realized this early that I'd hate it.

I bought a dress pattern on eBay, found a dressmaker and she came with me to pick the fabric. Whole thing came to £80 and was pretty much exactly what I wanted.

My father was very relieved. Although I then added a hand painted silk cloak that cost £300, but it still came to a lot less than the £1,600 dress I found online that I initially liked.

It was shit. I knew what i wanted, (knee length with straps so I could wear a proper bra). All the bridal shops looked at me in horror, because that wasn't a "wedding dress".

I eventually found someone who made sort of mix and match dresses is the best way I could describe it. Pick your style of top, bottom, embellishments etc. She was fab and did a great job, but I still didn't love the dress and my only regret about my wedding is feeling that I wasted silly amounts of money on a dress that was only OK.

Don't buy into the bullshit....