Brides: Be honest about your size!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a bride walk in to my store and tell me she is a size 10, when clearly she’s not. To determine where to start looking on the racks, I ask the bride what size she normally wears in street clothes, because typically wedding gowns run quite small and often you need a size that is one to two larger than normal. I know…it’s unfair. But I don’t make the gowns, and I can’t explain why it’s so. The only explanation I’ve ever come across was that many years ago sizing was much smaller and designers started to realize they would sell more clothes if they started “vanity sizing” to make customers feel better about themselves. Bridal designers, however, did not change their sizing. Though a few bridal makers have come around to vanity sizing, for the most part, you will wear a larger size in a wedding gown than you do in your everyday wear.

Alas, it does nobody any good to lie about your actual size. We really don’t care if you are a size 2 or 22. As consultants we don’t want to insult you by saying “Oh, really, are you sure that’s your size?” but we also don’t want to stretch out or rip the seams of our bridal gowns by trying to stuff you in to a gown that is two sizes too small. And we don’t want to waste our time pulling size 10’s when it’s clear you need a 14. So please be honest about what your current size is (not what you plan to be on your wedding day after you lose the 20 pounds you say you will) and don’t be discouraged when we tell you to try on gowns that are larger than you normally wear. After all, it is just a number. When you put on a gown you love, it shouldn’t matter what the tag says. Nobody is going to know!