Start with the most basic consideration: season, location, formality, budget, and body type. Answering these questions will help narrow down your wedding dress options. Once you’ve done your homework of flipping through bridal magazines and visiting bridal websites, it’s time to schedule appointments with bridal salons. Listen to your friends and brides around you for recommendations about salons’ services, style selection, and price.

What makes a great wedding dress?

What looks fabulous on a model may not flatter your figure – find the dress that suits your personal style and body shape. Shorter brides or brides who have broader shoulders should avoid straight necklines and horizontal line gowns such as super full gowns. They can elongate their bodies by choosing a sweetheart or a V-shaped neckline or an Empire-line gown. Curve-conscious brides should choose a gown with a structured, boned bodice and with stiffer, de-lustred fabrics if possible. This will hide all your flaws and play up your best features.

Confused of the world wedding fashion?

Every bride wishes to wear a designer wedding dress customized to perfection on her special day. Here are some suggestions of wedding dress designers for inspiration.

Pronovias – The Pronovias Group started in the1964 and is known as the leader in Spain’s bridal industry. Pronovias’ collection is designed under a strong team of researchers and 70 designers, lead by creative director Manuel Mota. Each year, hundreds of innovative bridal gowns, party dresses and thousands of accessories are created for brides all over the world. They have a wide selection of dresses with perfect fit silhouettes; luxurious fabrics as well as elaborate haute couture embroidery and beading feature designs. Pronovias dresses can be found at more than 3800 selling points worldwide.

Maggie Sottero – Maggie Sottero is the couture design division of Abbey Bridal in Australia, which has 30 years of extensive experience in bridal designs, manufacturing, wholesale and retail. Maggie Sottero couture has won numerous prestigious bridal design awards and the label is now famous all over the world, especially in UK and US. Their gowns are designed upon a lot of delicate details by using high quality materials including sequence, laces, Swarovski crystals, and silks but are reasonably priced. Maggie Sottero gowns are not designed to be flashy but to hide all the flaws and give the bride a perfect fit.

Vera Wang – Vera Wang is perhaps the best known wedding dress designer in the business and has become the celebrity’s favourite as Wang has designed for several well-known celebrities including Uma Thurman, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, and Mariah Carey. Unlike the conventional couture bridal gowns which put emphasis on embroidered and beaded feature designs, Vera Wang style is simple and elegant, targeting at young and fashionable brides. Wang was inspired by her own marriage and started her design company in 1990, and now Vera Wang is not only the iconic bridal designer but also maids, ready-to-wear, fragrance, beauty, accessories and home.

Other top wedding dress designers such as Monique Lhuillier, a hot celebrity’s new favourite, Badgley Mischka is described the red-carpet-destined evening wear, Reem Acra, her signature use of embroidery and delicate beadwork of tiny Swarovski crystals and seed pearls, Oscar de la Renta is one of world’s leading designers as his work was chosen by America’s former president Bush for his daughter, Jenna Bush’s wedding, Jenny Packham is known for her glamorous and ethereal aesthetic, and Jim Hjelm wedding dresses are classic and timeless.

For exquisite designer wedding dresses you have to really shop around to see where the bargains lie. Although there aren’t technically season styles new collections do allow you to pick up great discounts on going-out dresses.

There are some great sales to catch up on, especially on Vera Wang, Maggie Sottero and Pronovias wedding dresses, all of which are fantastic in quality, fitting and style. Big brands, although charge a premium for the label, usually are a lot more contemporary and bold in style then the local boutique counterparts.
Maggie Sottero in particular, are one of the most recognized wedding dresses manufacturers with amazing collections coming out every year.
Pronovias, although higher in price and more difficult to obtain, can prove to be a great bargain, in particular if you like minimalist designs.

Some dietary recommendations include upping your daily fruit intake to make sure you look your best in your brand new designer wedding dress as well as getting a facial twice a week to make sure your skin is out-glowing all your bridesmaids. Melbourne has some fantastic beauty specialists that know exactly what to do to make you look your best for your wedding.