4 Last-Minute Wedding Dress Tips for Every Bride
As a professional Bridal Dresser I’ve had the enviable privilege of being by the side of dozens and dozens of brides throughout the most special day of their lives. It’s a pleasure to see the joy of their dreams realised. Especially in recent years my team and I have loved seeing the pure elation of brides and grooms finally able to celebrate their love with friends and family around them. After 1, 2, or even 3 years of post-Covid postponement, their dream day is realised at last.
A large part of our job on your wedding day is ensuring that you and your entire bridal party look and feel fabulous. The last thing we want is an ill-fitting dress or suit, a missing button, or a trailing hem. And, trust me, my team and I have seen (and solved) all manner of last-minute wardrobe complications.
But the best possible scenario would be to avoid the complications in the first place. So, what are my best tips for how a bride and groom, and anyone else in the bridal party, can do that?
Try Your Shoes On
This is an absolute must for every bride wearing a full-length gown. The height of your heels will affect how your gown falls. Unless you’re specifically styling your dress to fall at a certain level, ankle-length for example, your seamstress will meticulously cut the hem of your dress to fall perfectly. This means it should fall just above the ground and allow you to walk freely without our needing to hold or lift the front of your dress, and avoiding you stepping on the front of your dress.
What’s wrong with needing to hitch up your dress during the day? Doesn’t it sometimes make for cute pictures??!
It’s true that sometimes a bride holding up the front of her dress could make for a cute picture. But here are some other things to think about:
It’s hard to hold up the front of your dress and hold onto your bouquet
If you’re stepping on the front of your dress then there’s more chance that someone else will too, and we don’t want you doing a “bridal” somersault!
If you touch your face and then touch your dress repeatedly, there’s a massive risk of transferring makeup onto your dress
And don’t forget that this tip works just as well for grooms and groomsmen as it does for brides and bridesmaids. Guys, try on your suit with the shoes you’ll be wearing. As well as checking that your shoes and suit are styled well together, this will absolutely help the seamstress to cut the hem perfectly.
2. Try Your Underwear On
Depending on the style of the bridal gown you’ll be wearing it may already have a corset integrated into the bodice of the dress. This is perfect to give you the necessary support, especially if your gown is strapless, without you needing to wear a bra at all.
But you’ll still need to give attention to your other undergarments, as well as the underwear you’ll be wearing with your second or third look.
If you’ll be wearing cinching shapewear to give you a flawless silhouette on the day, make sure you wear it to your dress fittings so your seamstress can fit the dress to the shape you’ll be on the day.
3. Try Sitting In Your Dress
The best time to try this would be during one of your fitting sessions with your seamstress. While you’re still in the bridal boutique or the seamstresses studio ask to grab a seat. If the seat is low, like a sofa, it’s still a great test. Maybe you can’t sit comfortably on a sofa (or get up!) and that’s a really useful thing to know before your wedding day.
4. Try Dancing in Your Dress!
If you don’t think this is an important tip then maybe you and I can’t be friends {*sad face}.
If you haven’t chosen to have a second “dancing” dress then making sure your dress looks just as stunning as you walk down the aisle, as it does when you’re jumping up and down on the dance floor is an absolute must.
At the very least it’ll be a great laugh to ask the assistants in the bridal boutique to pop on your favourite dance track so you can test this most important detail.
This is also something I love to get bridesmaids to test out as they all start to get dressed on the wedding day. Nothing like getting the party started before the ceremony has even begun!
5. (BONUS!) Try Dipping in Your Dress
Because you’ve read all the way to end of the post you get the reward of a bonus tip! Yay for you!
If you want the iconic shot of your husband dipping you, then make sure you practice beforehand. Dipping and kissing is one of those funny things which we all love to see a bride and groom do on their wedding day, but which we probably have never done before and will never do afterwards.
How can you practice dipping in your dress if you want to keep it secret from your love? Well, the next time you’re out on a date night wearing that cute maxi dress is a great chance for your to practice your “dip and kiss” technique together. And to test it out while you’re in your dress, well then you’ll have to grab your BFF and have some fun.
And if you think this sounds crazy, things like this were all part of the final bridal fitting when I used to have a bridal boutique. So let go (or rather, hang on!) and have some fun with it!
If you loved these tips and want to know more about our Bridal Dressing service, click the link below.