One of the first considerations when planning a wedding, is what the two of you will wear. This is possibly more true for the bride than it is for the groom, but it’s still important for both of you to look and feel your best.
Wedding dresses
It’s normal for the bride to purchase the dress in her home country and transport it out to the destination wedding. See our Transporting everything to your wedding abroad page, for tips on how to best go about this.
The type of dress that you’ll choose to wear is dependent on lots of factors:
- personal choice
- your body shape
- the time of year that you’ll be getting married in
- the location of your destination wedding
For instance, a floaty beach wedding dress would look out of place at the Ice Hotel in Canada.
Coloured dresses are also becoming more popular, so keep an open mind and try on as many different styles as possible, even if you think you know exactly what you want. If you had your heart set on a Hollywood Dreams number, you might be stunned to discover that you much prefer your look in a more simple style, or vice versa.
Before you visit an actual bridal shop, take a look on the Internet at various styles you like. Try websites such as Maggie Sottero, Pronuptia, Jenny Packham, Caroline Castigliano and Ian Stuart for ideas. You should also make a note of local bridal stores that you’ll want to visit. If you find a dress online that you like the look of, then you’ll need to work out which bridal store stocks this particular dress. Do some ringing around. Designers such as Maggie Sottero sometimes offer a loan service, where you pay a minimal amount of money to get a specific dress delivered into a bridal shop for a day or two – if you choose to order that dress, then your deposit will be refunded.
When you do go for your first trip to the bridal shop, make sure that you take someone with you. You should wear a strapless bra and take some water with you as the lights in the dressing room can get extremely hot. Although ideally it would be nice to take photos, you’ll find that most dress shops will not allow this as the designers don’t want you to take pictures of their dress and then get a copy made. So ask the shop for their policy on this.
Some brides try on their dresses in the UK, choose the dress of their dreams but then order it in from the USA. By doing this, it’s possible to save a lot of money on the cost of your dress. The downside is that you need to be careful about choosing a reputable mail order company, who won’t sell you an imitation and who offer fast shipping. You’ll also need to find a dressmaker who is willing to fit the dress to you when you didn’t buy it from their shop.
Wedding suits
Weddings aren’t just about brides and many grooms will want to look handsome on their own wedding day. What you wear is entirely up to you (if you’re lucky!) but will be dependent on things such as:
- the time of year
- the wedding venue
- any family or national traditions you wish to honour, such as wearing a kilt
- if you’re in the armed forces and want to wear your uniform
- the formality of your wedding
Having said this, many grooms opt for wearing some sort of suit to their wedding. It’s possible to have one especially made for you, to buy off the rack or to rent one out.
Renting a wedding suit in the UK is reasonably easy, but renting one for a wedding abroad is much more complicated. The main problem is that when you rent a suit, you normally only have it for a small number of days, whereas when you’re attending your destination wedding, you’ll require the hire for a much longer period of time. However, there is one company called Formally Yours, based in Coventry or Leicester, that offer an extended hire period of 2 weeks especially for weddings that are held overseas. The extra cost of the suit is £25 on top of the usual price of the suit package. If Coventry and Leicester aren’t convenient for you, then they have an excellent mail order service within the UK using Parcelforce.
