Custom Wedding Dresses: 4 Tips To Help The Process

Choosing to have a custom wedding dress created is a great way to showcase your unique style while guaranteeing you'll have a one-off gown to wear down the aisle on your special day. While it's a bit more work than simply finding an off-the-rack wedding dress, the extra fittings and time taken to create your gown are always worth it. We wanted to help take some stress off your mind and give you some tips when choosing a custom gown and everything else involved in the process.

Custom Wedding Dress: Search For Inspiration First

If you've decided to go the route of a custom-made wedding dress, the first thing you should focus on is searching for inspiration. The most accessible place to start your inspo journey is Pinterest. There are millions and millions of images of wedding dresses, fabrics, shapes, styles, and ideas for your future gown. If you want to take it a step further, you could potentially go wedding dress shopping and look around in a few stores locally to get some more ideas or try on different silhouettes and feel the fabric on your skin to get a good reference of what you might like. Ensure you keep mental notes of the things you want and don't like; it'll come in handy when you meet with your designer.

Can I Design My Wedding Dress?

If you've got all the ideas of exactly what you want on your wedding day but not the know-how, take all of your references and ideas along to your initial consult with a designer, and they'll help you bring it to life. While some women have no concrete idea of the wedding dress they want and want a designer to help steer them in the right direction, many brides know exactly what they want and just need a designer or seamstress to help them execute it the right way.

Finding The Right Designer For Your Wedding Gown

Finding the right wedding dress designer will be no easy task for several reasons. For example, some designers prefer to design to a specific niche (e.g., Boho wedding gowns). In contrast, others may be minimal on availabilities in the time frame that you'll need your dress brought to life. Ultimately, the best idea is to research all the local custom wedding dress designers. Look into their past clients, Google reviews, their social media profiles (both posted images + their tagged section!) And also, their websites, as these are essentially all portfolios of their work, will give you a good idea if they're the right fit for you. Don't forget that once you've booked a consultation and met with a designer, you should think it over before committing to anything. Your wedding day will be a huge moment in your life, and you deserve to look precisely how you want to on that day.

How Much Does A Custom Wedding Dress Cost?

The cost of a custom wedding dress will vary wildly based on the designer. Some custom bridal will start at $500-$1000 while others may be $2500-$3500 or much higher. It all comes down to a few different factors, such as the designers' scarcity, the designers' experience, and their own choices in costing. At your first consultation, any designer you meet will be able to give you an approximate cost/quote, and you'll be able to find something that works within your budget. If you're unsure if a designer might be outside of your budget, it's as simple as reaching out with a message, email, or phone call to ask what their custom wedding gown costs start at to get a good reference of what's available to you. One budgeting tip is to always stick to the final design once you've agreed upon it with your designer. The reason for this is because changes, once the dress is coming to life, will add in more costs for you overall and can quickly raise the price of your wedding gown further than what you expected to pay initially!

We hope some of this advice helps you on your path towards the custom wedding dress of your dreams. One of the most important things to remember is to enjoy the journey of bringing a custom wedding gown to life! It's a massive part of your overall wedding day. So enjoy it and take your time to live in the moment because it's all about making beautiful memories.