Weddingbee boards

I don't know how many plus sized (and I don't mean size 16, I'm talking 20s and up) brides are on this site, but I wanted to share my positive experience after hearing nothing but horror stories before going in.

I wear a street size 26-28 to be perfectly honest, and I spent MONTHS agonizing about the dress because this is obviously a much larger size than average.  I assumed that stores would have nothing for me to try on and looked into getting a custom dress from etsy.  I found a great dress and was ready to make a deposit, but I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to try the dress on and sad that I was going to miss that experience.  On top of that, I heard horror stories of places like David's Bridal outright denying brides in my size from trying on gowns, and of course rudeness left and right, something very common towards women in these sizes.  And then of course you hear about wedding dresses running small, or large, or whatever, so I assumed if a size 6 girl is getting a size 12 dress, there is no way they would have anything in my size.

However, there came a point when I decided I was going to bring my bridesmaids and just try to see if David's bridal had any dresses at all that I could try on. I was still planning on buying the custom dress and I wanted to make sure the color and neckline were correct before I put down my deposit.  Deciding to try on a dress was the best decision I ever made!

David's Bridal had more dresses in my size that I would have even wanted to try on, I think there must have been 10+ dresses in their largest size.  I think I ended up finding five dresses to try in the style I liked.  I went to try it on in a 26 expecting that it wouldn't fit, and it was too big!  I am certain that I wear a 26/28 so I was shocked, but in the end we had to go down to a 22.  The same thing happened at Alfred Angelo, I couldn't believe it.  It changed my whole wedding experience, I was so amazed.  I ended up with Alfred Angelo 2023W (probably one of the most flattering pieces of clothing I've ever worn in my life!).  On top of it, the sales people at Alfred Angelo were AMAZING, they were all so nice to me.  The only negative thing is that there are no plus-sized jackets/boleros to try on at the store but considering I thought they wouldn't have dresses in my size at all, I can't complain!

So even though this was kind of embarassing to talk about, I wanted to share my story in case there are other brides like me who are worried about trying on dresses because of our size.  I was almost to the point that I wanted to elope because I was so stressed, but in the end I had fun and was treated like any other customer.

Are there any other brides on this site that had similar problems or fears?

My figure is mostly similar to yours (except larger) and I think that also worked in my favor since most gowns are built to be larger on bottom than on top.  Ball gowns in particular are very forgiving to someone built like me.

I ended up with a great dress by Maggie Sottero but I also had a good experience at the Alfred Angelo salon in Lancaster, PA. They did have plus sized boleros in stock, so I got to try them on and I ended up buying one!

@ texaslawgirl I'm sorry to hear that!  They didn't have any plus sized dresses at all?

I ended up ordering mine from a local bridal salon, but didn't try it on or anything-in fact, I didn't try anything on. I'm an encore bride though and was absolutely sure that I wanted something very simple. I ended up with an Aurora d'Paradiso in a heavy ecru chiffon over satin-floor length.

I do have horrid memories from my first wedding though when it came to trying on dresses-I had things pinned to me, clips all over to give me "an idea" of what it would look like. That was over 16 years ago-things have come a long way since then.

My biggest challenge now has been finding an appropriate undergarment.

Here's a link to my dress-this company does quite a bit in the plus sized gown department:

http://www.formalsource.com/AURORA%20DPARADISO/ADP_SPR%2009/6872/6872FL2.html

I forgot to put the dress company name on my post-the link to my dress is to mine in particular, but it's a slide show of Aurora D' Paradiso (the line that cinemaparadiso mentioned. Excellent quality of a dress, my seamstress commented how well it was put together, but complained about the zipper-she said its one of those typical wedding dress zippers, but not something she would have put in her own dress and she doesn't understand why they continue to do that when they make wedding dresses. I did have to have my seamstress add some fabric to the front of my dress because I didn't have "church cleavage", I definitely had some "porn cleavage" going on!

Thanks for posting your story!

Blue by Enzoani has a gorgeous with curves trunk show, but their website is down right now, I went to that trunk show and got to try on like 10 dresses. their website usually shows the trunk show schedule