Now that my wedding day has past and I am back to reality
L I wanted to start breaking down each detail of my wedding for you! What better place to start than my dress shopping weekend? I decided to go to NYC, which is easy for me because I live in Upstate, NY.
To give you my one sentence synopsis: I loved every moment of wedding dress shopping -- however, I must admit that I expected a bit more glitz and glamour shopping in the wedding dress capital of the world!
Advice that I will pass on:
- Do your research—figure out which style dress (mermaid, ball gown, a-line etc) and which designers you like before going shopping! This may require one “fit-trip” to a wedding dress shop to try on every style before your actual shopping trip – pick what you feel best in.
- Keep it simple-- make 4 appointments max! You will be exhausted and overwhelmed if you try to attend too many appointments!
- Be Practical—When you have a budget set, don’t look at anything over that!
- Make sure if a store is having a trunk show you can still look at other dresses. Trunk shows are great because there is usually a designer discount, but sometimes they only let you look at that specific designer.
- If you want more “glitz and glamour” going to a high-end boutique outside of NYC is a better idea. We will get to Lea’s dress shopping stories later, but our shopping in Atlanta was a much more intimate experience, while NYC is more “strictly business”.
MY NYC WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING TRIP
I brought my Mother and my MOH & Bestie, Lea! Lea and I decided I only wanted 3 appointments, and she handled all of the arrangements. I went to Kleinfeld's, Saks Bridal Salon & Mark Ingram.
Kleinfeld’s was first at 110 W 20th Street. It is pretty much what you would expect! They have a huge showroom, considering it is NYC, and tiny changing rooms for you to hang out in. I like to be efficient with everyone’s time so I knew what I was there to see. I love their exclusive designer Pnina Tornai, and I love mermaid style gowns! They let me walk the showroom and I handpicked about ten gowns I wanted to try on … and then the fun began! The dress I fell in love with was one of the last I tried on: a brand new fall 2013 lace, backless gown. And HOLY BANANAS, there was a Pnina Tornai trunk show going on, which meant an additional 15% off. Anyway, I like to think sensibly (most of the time) and I knew I had two more appointments.
Next was Saks Bridal Salon at 611 Fifth Avenue. I guess I was surprised that the bridal salon seemed to be stuck in a tiny corner of the store. Pros: Very professional, knowledgeable, courteous staff with a great selection of dresses. Cons: Very few dresses were on display (all inventory was in the back), which meant I had to put a lot of trust in the consultant and know what I was looking for. Saks was having a Marchesa trunk show, so those were the only dresses on display in the front of the store. I really loved a couple of Vera Wang gowns, but ultimately ruled them out because they were not as unique as the Pnina Tornai gown.
Last, I visited Mark Ingram at 110 E 55th St. My consultant, Indira was fabulous (I highly recommend her)! But, here is where my Advice #4 comes from—we knew it was a Monique Lhullier Trunk Show, but because the salon is so small they were only letting people try on Monique gowns. They had a Monique rep in the store that they did not want to “offend” by having other dresses out. Well, I had already tried on the majority of Monique’s collection and knew they were not for me, so Indira did her best to sneak me some other alternatives. I tried on Lela Rose, Jenny Packham, Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta. Mark Ingram has an incredible selection -- I only wish I had the freedom of a non-trunk show day to try on whatever I wished!
After two days of shopping and fabulous meals with my mom and Lea—we headed back to Kleinfelds to make our purchase. Above is a picture of me with the dress designer, Pnina Tornai!
*** Last bit of advice: A lot of bridal salons do not allow you to take pictures of dresses unless you are buying them (Kleinfeld’s is one of them), to get around this, tell the consultant that you need some time to speak to your family alone and when they leave the room, snap away!!! This way you can always go back and look at your top contenders before making a very large purchase!
Some of my favorite Monique Lhullier & Vera Wang mermaid style gowns
xx, Lou