I've worked at various points for a very well known bridal boutique chain, a very well known men's event outfitters, 2 hotels and a large restaurant in event management. I also have a cousin who is an event dj (birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvah's, weddings), have 2 friends still working in the industry (one is an events organiser in a hotel that's very popular for weddings and the other is cake baker and decorator who often makes wedding cakes) and I can absolutely assure you venues and peripheral things like dj's get booked up very quickly for December/Christmas/new year certainly the best ones do.
"Wtf is graphista on? You go to a bridal shop, choose a dress and have it altered to fit if needs be. They'll do that for you."
It's not the dress you try on that's altered!
Unless you're happy buying a sample that possibly hundreds of others have worn (and some of us are I was fine doing that for mine, and it can be a ways to cut costs or simply to get the dress you like if it's been discontinued) but most brides who want a traditional and new gown, it has to be ordered at least 6 months in advance and the vast majority ARE made in China as they're usually made from some type of silk. It's a huge industry there. Some of those making do sell on eBay and similar but quality (and understanding of measurements and many brides don't know how to get their measurements taken correctly) varies greatly.
Measurements are taken and the dress is made up to those measurements but brides often change weight/proportion in the run up to the wedding, most commonly they lose weight from being busy organising the wedding and nerves. Also most dresses ordered from the uk are made up for a bridal height of 5'10" (unless otherwise specified for taller brides) as that's fairly tall for a uk bride and you can remove length from a dress but not add to it. The exact underwear and heel height the bride will be wearing also affects the alterations.
I'd also always caution against getting alterations done cheaply at a high street alterations shop that normally just does school uniform hems etc. I've lost count of the number of brides that tried this and had their dresses wrecked by inexperienced alterations ladies who are not trained seamstresses and not used to handling silk which is very unforgiving fabric for this.
"I've found in both my personal and professional experience that the longer you take to plan a wedding, the harder it is. There's longer to deliberate over decisions and longer for people to stick their noses/opinions in." Totally agree with this. I've seen brides with very long engagements decide on the most unnecessary additional details as they get carried away. I'd say 1 year to 18 months for a traditional big white wedding, 6-12 months for smaller more casual affairs.
I promise you I dealt with dresses by a variety of designers/retailers and they came to us from China mainly, occasionally other countries in the Far East.
"if the sample size isn’t close to the brides it might not be able to be altered to fit." Good point I almost forgot. I understood can only be altered (dependant on style of course) to go up 1 size, but was really surprised to learn that they can be taken IN up to THREE sizes (again dependent on style). Our in house seamstress was amazing and was quickly and seemingly magically able to add and remove all kinds of decoration to the brides specification - so don't be put off by something like a sleeve style you don't like or decoration it's lacking or you want added. Doesn't hurt to ask what's possible. I remember being completely amazed at one dress that a bride loved, standard strapless straight across neckline, except she wanted a sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves added and our seamstress did that in a few hours! So in awe of her talent.
And I agree there are some absolutely gorgeous dresses on the high street now too. But the alterations experts can help you make these personalised. They won't care it's a high street dress.
"We visited a few shops a two the end of May and not one of them flinched" of course not - great excuse for them to bump up the price for speedier delivery if a new highly decorated, many layered gown. And 5 months isn't too bad anyway. We did occasionally have some brides thinking a highly embellished full ball gown can be knocked up in 6 weeks though! Or were just hanging about in a warehouse somewhere in the right size!
"so are you on maternity leave at the moment? I planned most of our wedding during the last few months of my maternity leave. Was much easier to get out and visit venues and dress shops in the week as I found they had plenty of available appointments" yep weekends were always busiest whichever of the wedding related jobs I did, weekdays especially weds and thu were much quieter absolutely dead
There's huge variety in types and size of weddings and it's a very personal decision but that also affects what you're able to organise and in what time scale.