What to Do if You Hate Your Wedding Dress

Oct 25, 2017

What to Do if you Hate Your Wedding Dress

What would a month long series on wedding dress shopping be without a post for those of us who have the unthinkable happen? If you’ve purchased a wedding dress and find yourself suddenly faced with dress regret, this post is going to be for you. If you haven’t checked out my post where I talk about my wedding dress horror story, definitely check it out for all of the delicious details into how I ended up buying two wedding dresses.

Brides can envision the way their wedding dress appointments will go, there can be tears and laughter and giddyness when you make that initial payment on your wedding dress. But something happens in the weeks and months following that initial high of purchasing a wedding dress that a lot of people don’t want to talk about: dress regret. I’m here to tell you that it’s normal and that realizing you don’t love your wedding dress isn’t the end of the world. Here’s my first hand advice on what to do if you hate your wedding dress!

Look at pictures of your dress from real brides

I don’t know about you but I hate looking at the stock photos of wedding dresses. First of all, I’m not that tall or skinny so it doesn’t give you an actual idea of what you look like in the dress. I am hyper critical of myself in pictures so looking at the ones I had saved on my phone of me actually in my dress didn’t really help either. So I took to Pinterest, Google, and even Instagram to look up actual pictures of my dress on real brides. Seeing my first wedding dress on brides who are petite like me was actually a huge deciding factor in whether or not I would look for other dresses.

Talk to the bridal salon where you purchased your dress

If you truly think you are not going to be happy with your dress after looking up real bride pictures, contact the bridal salon or store where you purchased your wedding dress immediately! If your dress hasn’t come in yet, there’s a good chance they may be willing to work with you on finding a new dress and save you some money in the long run. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t decide I hated my dress until after it had already come in, meaning I was pretty much stuck with it. However, since the price of alterations was included in my dress, the discounted the final price by a couple of hundred dollars.

Make another appointment for wedding dress shopping

If you’re fairly certain that you’re going to be looking for another wedding dress, make an appointment and start thinking about what you really want in a wedding dress. The second appointment I had (after I already purchased a dress) I went into a salon and tried on virtually every single one of their Hayley Paige gowns. Then my cousin pulled a dress that was completely different than anything I had tried on. I knew the minute I walked out in it and caught my reflection in the mirror that it was the one. However, don’t stop there. After you find “the dress” make sure to try your initial dress on as well. I was lucky enough that the salon carried the dress I had already purchased and putting it on after the one I ultimately chose further solidified my decision. It was written all over my face!

Sell your wedding dress

If you are in a position like me and need to sell the first wedding dress you bought, I highly suggest Preowned Wedding Dresses. I sold mine through this website and it was easy to do and pretty much stress free. You don’t need any extra stress on top of planning your dream wedding so selling your mistake dress shouldn’t be that difficult! Let me know if you would like to see a post dedicated to selling your wedding dress online! There are also some pretty great Facebook groups that you can join to connect with other brides and sell items like unaltered wedding dresses so don’t be afraid to explore your options.

Did you suffer from dress regret? How did you overcome it? We want to know!

If you’ve been with me all of October for this series, THANK YOU! This was the first legitimate series I’ve done on the blog since launching and June and I had so much fun sharing my thoughts and experiences on wedding dress shopping with you. Let me know if there are any other wedding related series you want to see!