Should I Sleep on it?

Guide to Avoiding “Wedding Dress Regret”

How to Avoid Wedding Dress Regret

Your wedding dress is a key aspect of your wedding experience. From trying it on for the first time to wearing it on your wedding day, you want the entire experience to be fun and stress free. One of the scariest aspects of wedding dress shopping is the possibility of wedding dress regret. So in this post we’re breaking down our guide to avoiding wedding dress regret, and answering the popular question, should you sleep on your wedding dress decision.

Why Wedding Dress Regret Happens

First and foremost, what is “wedding dress regret”? Wedding dress regret is the feeling that the wedding dress you bought and said yes to, actually isn’t the dress you want to get married in. This feeling most often occurs within 24-48 hours after buying a dress. Here at Bella Brides, we strive to make sure our brides feel confident when saying “yes” to their dress. We have a variety of questions and exercises we walk through with our brides to make sure the dress they say yes to is the dress they’ll feel confident walking down the aisle in, so this feeling rarely occurs for our brides.

But why does it happen? There are a number of reasons why someone may experience dress regret, but most of them can easily be summarized into one thing: they didn’t trust their gut.

Wedding dress shopping is unlike anything else. Even if you aren’t an emotional person, wedding dress shopping is much more emotional than it is logical. At some point in your dress shopping experience, you’ll put on a dress and have the thought: “is this my dress?”. It’s a nerve wracking feeling, especially if you’re early into your dress shopping or if it happens in a dress that was completely different from what you had originally looked at online. We see brides all the time who come in with a specific vision for their wedding dress and leave with something entirely different. But that’s the thing about wedding dress shopping, there is no set timeline and you can’t plan for what dress will feel like “the one”.

Some of the most common reasons brides experience wedding dress regret are…

Being too focused on sticking to the vision on the Pinterest board, instead of choosing the dress that makes you feel the most comfortable and confident
Letting outside opinions dictate how you feel about a dress
Comparing your dress to other dresses on social media that are likely far outside of budget

How to Know Your Dress is “The One”

The best way to avoid wedding dress regret, is by feeling confident when you do say yes! So how to do you know your dress is “the one”?

Everyone's reactions to finding the dress are different. Some people cry, some people laugh, some people instantly know, and some think on it for a minute before deciding this is it. So it’s best not to come with any expectations of how it will go for you. The most important thing is to listen to your gut— even if it may contradict what your group is saying, or what you initially liked on Pinterest. Like I mentioned earlier, at some point in your dress shopping experience you will try on a dress and have the thought “I think this could be my dress”. It’s a scary thought, so you’ll keep trying on dresses and once you circle back to that one, that’s when people typically have their “moment” and know it's their dress.

Here at Bella Brides, we like to keep a “favorites” corner of dresses throughout your appointment. During your appointment we will put aside your top 1-2 favorites to circle back to at the end. The first time you put on a dress, it’s great to see if you like it. Generally you are looking at the details of the dress and comparing it to earlier dresses. The second time you put on a dress is really when you see how you feel in it, and when you’ll start to know if it’s your dress.

As stylists, this is what we look for to know if a bride is in “her dress”

Does she feel like a bride?
Does she feel beautiful in it?
Does she feel excited about the idea of wearing it on her wedding day?
And arguably the biggest sign is when we can tell that she doesn’t want to take the dress off

If you’re standing in your dress and it checks all of those boxes, we can pretty confidently say, that’s your dress!

Should you “Sleep On” Your Dress Decision?

Some of the most common advice for dress shopping you’ll hear is “you should sleep on it”. But should you?

Here at Bella Brides we want every single bride who leaves our shop to feel confident and so happy about the choice they made! So if sleeping on your dress decision gives you the clarity you need, then yes you should do that. But if you just feel like you should sleep on it because it's the “right” thing to do, we don’t recommend it.

Reasons to “Sleep On” Your Dress Decision

If you are stuck between two dresses from two different stores, and you are truly torn between the dresses, taking a day or two to step away from dress shopping can give your mind a break. We recommend scheduling a follow up appointment at both stores ideally on the same day, so that you can try just those two dresses back-to-back.
If you have done A LOT of dress shopping at many different stores, you may experience decision fatigue. Decision fatigue happens after you have made so many decisions about what you like and don’t like, to the point of exhaustion. At this point you are not fully in the experience anymore and it can be overwhelming to decide on your dress when you brain can’t think.If you start to experience this, we recommend pausing and scheduling a follow-up appointment to try on just your top 3 dresses. That way you can take a second to breathe and then come back feeling refreshed and in a position where you don’t need to make 100 decisions again.

We recommend you book a follow-up appointment within a week of your original appointment, that way you don’t feel like you’re starting from scratch again.

Reasons to Not “Sleep On” Your Dress Decision

If you are purchasing an off-the-rack dress (aka you are taking the dress home with you the same day), sleeping on your decision creates the opportunity for that dress to be sold before you can purchase it. Almost half of our brides at Bella buy off-the-rack dresses, which means we have brides every single day taking dresses home with them, and it can take 6 months for those dresses to arrive back in our store. We have had instances where brides wanted to sleep on their dress decision, and when they came back excited to say yes, their dress had already been sold to another bride. This is an unfortunate reality of wedding dress shopping.
If you are special ordering your dress with less than 8 months until your wedding, waiting to commit to your dress decision could mean that your favorite could no longer be available in time for your wedding. Industry standard is that dresses can take up to 6 months to arrive, with a small amount of dresses are available on a rush. Designer ship dates constantly change, jumping day-to-day making this an extremely important logistic. During every appointment, our stylists make sure only to pull dresses that are available to order in time for your wedding, but if you wait even a few days to make that decision, those dresses could no longer be available in time for your wedding.

When you have a “moment” in your dress or you have an overwhelming feeling that this is your dress, then you should say yes! Part of the fun and exciting bridal shopping experience is getting to say yes during all the feelings and celebrate with your loved ones who you chose to come with. So if you’re standing in the dress, feeling all the things, and confidently feel like this is your dress, why halt that experience just to sleep on it and then come back the next day to buy it? If you are questioning if it’s your dress, then yes sleeping on it can help clear the air. But if you LOVE it and you know it’s your dress, sleeping on the decision doesn’t do anything.

Tips for Avoiding Wedding Dress Regret

#1 Be Open Minded When Trying on Dresses

When you come in with a VERY specific vision of the dress you want, you limit your opportunities to find your dress. It’s very common for brides to come in with a vision of what they think they want their dress to look like, and leave with something entirely different. Looking at photos of wedding dresses online is so different from experiencing them actually on your body. Something you may have loved on Pinterest, could fall flat once you see it in person. So being open minded to try on everything, gives you the opportunity to be surprised by a dress you LOVE and may have never thought of.

#2 Come with a Budget in Mind

The most common way brides experience wedding dress regret is by either overspending or underspending on their dress. Your wedding dress is something you will only wear once, but that one time is one of the most important days of your life. Your “perfect” dress is also one that fits within your budget. If you overspend on your wedding dress, it can cause a lot of financial stress, which is not what you want leading up to your wedding day. And choosing a budget too low, can limit your dress options and leave you feeling like you didn’t get to try on the dresses you would have loved. So have a conversation with whoever is buying your dress (if it’s you and your fiancé or a loved one) and come up with a number you can confidently stick to. At Bella Brides, we won’t pull dresses over our brides budget without a conversation first. So having a budget in mind is key for not feeling dress regret. Need a little help finding your perfect budget? Read How to Choose your Wedding Dress Budget next!

#3 Stop Looking at Inspo Once You Find Your Dress

One of the easiest ways to experience dress regret is by continuing to look at inspiration or continuing to shop after you’ve found your dress. It is soooooo easy to compare your dress to other dresses online, but it’s important to remember that the dress you are seeing online could far exceed your wedding dress budget, could be a style that you didn’t love when you tried it on in person, or could even be AI. Continuing to shop after you’ve already bought your dress is a very easy way to start experiencing dress regret. There are sooooooo many wedding dresses in the world and there are many dress that you’ll likely love. So once you find your dress, it’s best to stop the shopping experience so that you can stay super excited and not muddle those feelings with more and more dresses.

All photos graciously provided by MOT Photography and Bridget and Ryan Photography

(PS. they are both amazing)

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