Diary of a Boho Bride – Whitney and Tom, Entry 2: Choosing The Wedding Dress

Hello everyone and how are you all this afternoon? I certainly have that Friday feeling today, Paul and I went out for a lovely meal in London last night followed by a stroll along South Bank. It was a great night and just what we needed after a very hectic few weeks. Back to work today! I am in London for the weekend shooting a wedding, I’m hoping the weather behaves for me tomorrow, fingers and toes crossed!

Today we are back with our Boho Brides feature and this time we are back with Whitney our wedding destination bride.

I’ll pass you over to Whitney

Hello lovelies! Well I don’t know where the time is going in the run up to this wedding, but it really is flying by. So what have we done since the last post? Quite a lot actually! Planning a wedding abroad requires lots of organisation (obviously!) and I’m conscious that I want to enjoy the run up to wedding with it being as stress free as possible so I have tried to do as much as I can from the get-go.

Here’s our progress and suppliers so far…

• Venue (Agroturismo Can Gall) – www.boho-weddings.com/2015/05/29/diary-of-a-boho-bride-whitney-and-tom-entry-1-top-10-tips-for-planning-a-destination-wedding
• Catering – www.thechefibiza.com
• Flowers – www.flowersibiza.com/shop/en
• Save the dates – www.lalalab.com/en
• Wedding website – www.theknot.com
• Make up and hair  – www.dreamreflection.com.au
  Invitations from Etsy
  Bridesmaid dresses from Debenhams

So, given that we are now 9 short months away from getting married, I have kicked up the planning a notch by starting the search for a dress…. or the materials, I should probably more accurately say. Yes, I’m going bespoke! My Aunt has offered to make my dress as her wedding present to me which is very exciting and slightly nerve wracking as I am in no way a Designer by any shape or form. I couldn’t design a t-shirt let alone my wedding dress!

Going bespoke always involves taking a bit of a risk in that you won’t have ‘the one’ moment that so many brides speak of (ok maybe you will, but only closer to the end of the process!) and that can be a scary thing to get over when you are making the decision of going down this road.

We decided to visit a couple of bridal stores in London as a first step to find out which styles suited my body shape and it was an amazing experience. I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! I did quite a lot of research about the stores first as I had to choose carefully because many places in London now charge you for appointments. With a wedding to pay for and knowing my Aunt was going to make my dress anyway, it wasn’t feasible to go to all of them, so I had to choose based on ones that stocked a range of designers that I liked.

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I had good experiences at every one that I visited, with the highlights being Angelica Bridal in Islington which is a lovely small boutique store stocking the most gorgeous gowns which are so timeless, sophisticated and elegant. The dresses are so feminine and gorgeous that I have no doubt every Bride-to-be who visits leaves the store with the feeling they may have found the one. The thing I loved most about this store was the privacy, I dreaded the thought of being stood next to other brides trying their dresses on but this was not the case at Angelica Bridal.

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The other store I visited was Morgan Davis in Clerkenwell. The store was hugeeee and there were so many dresses to choose from. They probably had the biggest range of Designers out of all the stores I visited. The store had actually been recommended to me by two of my colleagues as they had both found their dresses in the store. I must say the assistant I had was the best at pinning me in the dresses so I could really visualise what the dress would look like. it can be so difficult to tell when the dresses aren’t your size but she was fab. And if the dress was missing something like a sleeve…then no problem a sleeve would be pinned on!

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The last store I visited was the famous Browns Bride in Mayfair. The dresses ranged from 5k-20k and I probably enjoyed the experience at this store the least. Only a handful of dresses are displayed and you are asked to select 2/3 to try on and then the assistant goes downstairs to where all the dresses are stored and selects similar styles to your choosing. However part of the fun, I found, was riffling through all the different styles and as most brides will tell you when they found the one, they ended up picking something they wouldn’t have normally which makes it quite a challenge when you can’t see all the dresses on offer

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If you’re just starting off on the dress shopping experience, I have the following words of wisdom for you, which I hope are somewhat helpful:

• Have a designated dress-shopping person or two who can come to every appointment with you and will be able to help you compare all the dresses.
• The experience can be really over-whelming so limit the boutiques you visit. The dresses will start to blur into one!
• Try on everything and every style possible, you will probably surprise yourself!
• Try on lots of accessories such as a veil or a belt. Even if you think you don’t want one sometimes they can really transform a dress.

Having now a good idea of what style suits me the next step is to source the materials which I’m sure will be a challenge in itself. Any recommendations for lace suppliers are welcome! It’s going to be a lot of fun picking the fabric, design and all the little details and so lovely and personal to me to have someone in the family to make my dress.

After the materials are decided upon, the next thing to consider will be the underwear as the dress will be made around this! I do have a favour to ask of you married, or closer-to-being-married-than-me ladies out there say my dress had quite a low back, and I’m “blessed” in the bra area…do you have any suggestions of what I can wear underneath? Any tips would be fab!

Until next time lovelies

Whitney and Tom
xxx