Bridesmaids dress in white

[MMM]

i saw this today:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071226204013AAmzjx1
and it has me concerned.

it says that vera wang doesn''t like to let you order one of their bridesmaids dress as a brides dress.

i was hoping on looking into this route (getting as BM dress as my own). but now im worried that the big name designers aren''t okay with that. does anyone know anything about this? i tried googling for info but didn''t find anything else, so i''m hoping this girl was just misinformed.

i wanted to look at the BM lines of melissa sweet, vera, amsale....

 

[musey]

Hmm. That sounds very weird to me.

Then again, designers have all kinds of weird rules (like this, and leon''s no-wedding-band rule, among others) that I really wouldn''t understand without much further explanation!


P.S. Yes, I know Leon has somewhat legitimate reasons for that rule, but it''s still "weird" at first glance!

 

[E B]

I don''t know about Vera''s policy, but it looks like several Amsale bridesmaid gowns are available in white and I see a few Melissa Sweet gowns in "cloud". I''d ask a few bridal salons or places like Pearl''s Place to see if they have any policies against it.

 

[DiamanteBlu]

Date: 1/6/2008 11:04:22 PM
Author:MMM
i saw this today:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071226204013AAmzjx1

and it has me concerned.


it says that vera wang doesn''t like to let you order one of their bridesmaids dress as a brides dress.


i was hoping on looking into this route (getting as BM dress as my own). but now im worried that the big name designers aren''t okay with that. does anyone know anything about this? i tried googling for info but didn''t find anything else, so i''m hoping this girl was just misinformed.


i wanted to look at the BM lines of melissa sweet, vera, amsale....

It is your dress and you are going to wear it. If you want to get a "bridesmaid''s" dress in white or cream or ecru or champagne or whatever . . . the problem is????

Ignore what people think and do what you want.

BTW When I first got married I did not do the "wedding dress" thing. Instead, I got a cream colored silk ball gown [with a jeweled belt] from Bonwit Teller [high end dept. store that has been gone for a while]. I paired it with an 18'' veil as a train and used a ribbon instead of the jeweled belt. I can still wear that dress to this day as an evening gown.

For my second wedding I wore a 2-piece strapless Catherine Regehr evening gown [in red silk satin] instead of going "wedding" [the same Regher gown was shown on the cover of a bridal magazine in silver as a wedding dress - actually, that was how I found it! LOL!]

So - do what is right for you. Remember that wedding dresses are much more expensive [unnecessarily so IMH 54 year old O] than other appropriate dresses. Stand your ground and get what you want.

 

[neatfreak]

What I have heard is a combo of the two. They charge an extra fee if you order a single BM dress in white or ivory. If you order multiples it's the same price as the other colors.

That is what one bridal shop told me when I had a VW bridesmaids dress on...but I don't know if that's true everywhere or it is just store by store?

But think about it...of course the big name designers want to to buy a wedding dress if you're a bride and MUST have a VW, ML, MS, or some other name brand because they make a whole lot more money! Not ethical...but unfortunately in this world it's a lot about making $...

 

[DiamanteBlu]

BTW, everything wedding is more expensive. When we got married [2nd for both] we did not tell the venue it was a wedding - it was just a party with a little ceremony for which we needed a bit of space. [Giggle]

It wound up being spectacular - food, wine, flowers, ceremony [the inn was decorated for Christmas! LOL!]. Everybody had a great time, the inn got paid, etc.

If you can do things without letting the venue/caterer/florist/etc. know it is a wedding you can get even more bang for your buck.

I know, my bad!

 

[mimzy]

i''ve heard about other even more budget friendly designers doing this with their bridesmaids lines - i forget who, but i heard one designer made you order no less than FIVE bridesmaid dresses if you were ordering them in white or ivory!


(i like how they don''t even TRY to hide the fact they are price gouging just because it a different person is going to wear it)

 

[MMM]

oh no! i was so hoping this was simply incorrect information with no truth to it : (
...sigh...

EBree - I really am most most interested in a Amsale BM gown i saw in a magazine this month. I so hope that they sell single order dresses in white! I dont think the issue is whether they are offered in white (i think all of vera''s are too) but rather that they dont want to you subing a BM dress as a wedding dress.

DiamanteBlu - it is not that i care a lick what these companies think of me as a person. its just that i don''t want them to charge me more!

neatfreak - "But think about it...of course the big name designers want to to buy a wedding dress if you''re a bride and MUST have a VW, ML, MS, or some other name brand because they make a whole lot more money! Not ethical...but unfortunately in this world it''s a lot about making $.."
: ( so true.... its just silly because i feel like their prospective customers for bridal gowns are very different (frantically speaking) from someone like me who would consider wearing a bridesmaids dress. it kind of backfires on them in a way. there is just no way that i will be buying one of their wedding gowns... so it makes me think, wouldn''t they rather have at least the sale of a BM gown than nothing at all? oh well... if i find one i love hopefully the charge wouldn''t be too much to get it in white.
*and as i side note i woudlnt call myself someone who must have a designer label gown. i have tried looking at bridal gowns in my price range but have come up completely empty handed. so, ive moved on the bridesmaids dresses, but so far the dresses by more moderately priced designers have just all looked so bridesmaid-y to me...

mimzy- FIVE DRESSES?! i don''t even have 5 bridesmaids! that is just insanity!

 

[matildawong]

I feel clueless because, how would the designers know what you''re wearing their dress for?

A few years ago when I was kinda/sorta/halfway engaged to an ex, I picked up a Vera Wang Maids dress on the rack at Nordstroms with the intention of wearing it (someday) as a bridal gown. I still have it and my REAL engaged-in-training bf and I both love it.

But how could Ms. Wang ever know what I was wearing it for?

Seriously, it was sold on the rack at sale price. They wanted to make money off it and they did. So why would they care? Or is it current lines of bmaid dresses that they don''t want ordered alone..?

 

[Sabine]

Although I am strongly against lying to the people I know and care about in my life, I am all about the little white lies to vendors if it means saving money and stress. If the issue is just buying one of a bridesmaid dress...couldn''t you tell them you were looking for a gown for a formal strictly "black and white" affair? They should not charge more for something like that....

 

[Mrs Mitchell]

As Sabine says, a little white lie to a vendor to save money and stress might be the best thing, if you''re ok with it. Why not just tell them you''re a bridesmaid for an oot wedding and you''ve been told this is the dress to get? Would that work?

Good luck finding your perfect dress.

Jen

 

[MMM]

matildawong - the problem would be encountered when trying to order one at a bridal salon. apparently certain designers wont accept an order for a single dress in white, because they assume (rightly so in most cases) to you''ll be using it as a wedding gown. if the dress was already made and just waiting to be bought there wouldn''t be a problem, the trouble is when placing a custom order (i believe this is how most bridesmaids dresses are made these days - you order the dress in the color and sizes you need)

Sabine & Jen - i am not above white lies

- but it just annoys me that this would be necessary. also, it does seem a little difficult to do because unless you know for sure that you have a specific dress that you want to get in white it would be hard to not let on that you''re the bride. for example, i''m going dress shopping (well, more like dress ''browsing'') tomorrow i wouldn''t want to say im just a bridesmaid (or just going to a fancy party) because then they wouldn''t necessarily bring out any wedding dresses for me to try on. i''m not dead set on buying a BM dress in white - i''m just trying to look at all my options to find a dress i love that is within my budget.

anyways...... im going to a dress shop that carries the amsale bm line tomorrow. im hoping they''ll have the one that i saw in instyle weddings this week, but it may be a brand new style and therefore may not be in the shop yet. also, i asked the shop when i called about amsale''s rules on ordering a single bm dress in white and she said she wasn''t sure but someone there tomorrow will be able to tell me.
i''ll let you guys know what i find out, just in case anyone else is interested!

 

[gtn]

Alternately, you could try on the dress at one shop and order from another. Or have someone else order the bm dress for you. You could try on the bm dresses and tell the sales associate that you want to try on possible bm dresses for your wedding. Say your colors or white and cream.

 

[matildawong]

Thanks, MMM, for clearing that up for me.

Cute puppy in your avatar!

 

[Dutchgirlll]

Hi MMM!

I wanted to do the same thing you''re planning to. Wanted to get a VW BM dress, in stead of a WD. Got to the BS and kinda started a talk about it. She warned me that there could be minimum amount of dresses that you had to order, or an extra fee if I would only order 1.

And with the VW line, not much dresses come in white or ivory. Most of them come in different shades, but you may try sand or something like that. I ended up just buying a regular WD. The BM dresses were lovely, though and a fraction of the WD price. I ordered a cocktail dress for my rehearsal dinner and that was $270. Couldn''t get a designer dress for that money up here (Netherlands), and it will be altered for me as well.

Hope this helps you out, unfortunately VW just got rid of the color schemes she had on her website (you used to see all the shades for a dress). If you don''t wanna lie, just be upfront about it, but I do think a little lie might help you save some money.

 

[Dutchgirlll]

This is the dress I got (I ordered it in plum):

 

[Dutchgirlll]

back

 

[MMM]

i have good news
i went to a big bridal shop today to look around (my bridesmaids are coming to visit me next weekend so we can go dress shopping together, so i don''t want to try things on until they are with me, but i wanted to look into the shop to see if it would be worth the drive of bringing the girls there when they are in town). they had a huge selection of dresses and i found a few in my price range but was for the most part feeling frustrated. then i went in their bridesmaid section. i think this is looking more and more promising. i was thinking of buying a bm dress as a not-as-good-but-it-will-do alternative to a "real" dress but i found more in the bm section that i really loved than in all of the HUGE bridal area (regardless of price).

so, then the question...

i asked the bridesmaid dress consultant about designers not allowing orders in white and she said she''d never even heard of that! yay! this shop carries jim hjelm, alvina valenta, melissa sweet, amsale, lazaro, and bunches of others. they didn''t carry vera wang bm (so vera may indeed not permit orders in white and this woman just may not know about it since they didn''t carry her dresses). but i saw a couple jim hjelms that i loved and an amsale i reallly want to try on! i cant wait for my friends to get here so we can go try them on! this is the very first time i have even been remotely excited about dress shopping! i have been dreading the experience of going and realizing that i can''t afford anything i liked and now i have hope that it will all be okay!

we are definitely going to take as many pictures are we are allowed since my mom wont be here (i moved to califonia so all my friends and family are back home in florida) and we''re going to take lots of pictures for her -- meaning i will have pictures to post on ps as well!!

 

[matildawong]

Yay! I can''t wait to see LOTS of pictures!

 

[diamondfan]

Why can''t you say you are a bridesmaid in an all white wedding, and that the bride is allowing her bridal party, who are scattered all over the US and abroad, to chose a white dress they like, in the interest of fairness and ease of shopping. If they ask anything more, play dumb, you are in the wedding but only dealing with your own dress. I had a friend that actually did that, but with black dresses, and she only cared that they were black and appropriate for her temple wedding. See if that works.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Va-Va-Va-Voom Blue, I bet you looked smashing in the red!