We’ve long been sold the idea that you should feel your most beautiful and happy on your wedding day. Not only will you glow with the love you share with your partner, but you’ll also get to wear your dream wedding dress—a sartorial piece of your choosing that can hold a deep meaning and a sizable portion of your wedding budget. With such a big financial and emotional investment, the process of finding this garment should be surrounded by similar feelings of joy, right? Well, if you aren’t a bridal sample size, think again.
Unlike going to a typical ready-to-wear store, it is practically unheard of for a luxury bridal salon to carry an entire size run of gowns for customers to try on. Instead, they will likely carry a bridal size 8 or 10—which is equivalent to a U.S. street size 4-6 or 6-8—and occasionally another option in a size 16 or 18, which is closer to a 12-14 or 14-16. In many cases, when brides come to see a luxury wedding dress trunk show, the only options available from the collection will be runway samples, which are closer to a size 2. If you purchase a gown, measurements will be taken to see what size they can order from the brand’s size chart. If you are outside the scope, you may be required to pay more to create a custom piece to get the same designer look in a larger garment.
In short, it’s quite rare for to-be-weds to try on a dress that feels like a perfect fit before ordering. If you are too small for the sample, stylists will use giant clamps in the back of a garment to adjust it down to your size. Too large? They may leave the dress unzipped, pin it, or add fabric panels to the back to create the illusion that it’s closed. You may struggle to fit a dress over your body and be left seeing the material bunched up and not lying flat. In the worst cases, you may be asked to hold the dress up to your body and just imagine how the dress might look on you before making a $10,000 purchase.
“This process should—in an ideal world—be joyful, and dressing yourself for this occasion should be something that feels special,” says Alysia Cole, a body-positive bridal stylist who works with many plus-size clients. “Instead, it can so often just hurt your own perception of yourself and bring a lot of your own body issues to the surface. I have a lot of clients who have experiences with eating disorders and told me they thought they were in such a good place—and then they started shopping for dresses. Everything got triggered again.”
As someone who typically wears a size small, I had an easier time trying on wedding dresses than most when preparing for my wedding last fall. Despite that, I still had a difficult time trying on certain sample sizes, where I fully just gave up trying to pull over my hips. I admit I often would leave appointments feeling more conscious of my body than before and strategizing how to tone up ahead of the wedding. But for the average American woman, who is between a size 14 and 16, it’s an even more difficult experience when you’re so limited in sample sizes to try. Just the other day, a friend who is a size six mentioned that a high-end bridal brand could barely accommodate her into their gowns.
Cole does note there is a difference between bridal salons that are considered “luxury” and those that are not. Stores with lower price points, like David’s Bridal, will likely have more options available in all sizes to try on, while a few stores with luxury options, like Kleinfeld, are known for their broader selection. There are also several plus-size specific bridal salons around the country, yet they often don’t carry as many elevated brands. When working with larger brides who want to wear luxury designers, Cole will often take them to one of these stores to actually try something on and see which silhouettes work for them, before going to look at designs that could be more of a style match at luxury salons and showrooms.
#Bridal #Industry #Size #Inclusivity #Problem
