Of course, I could just cease my whining, pick a dress, and be done with it. But there’s the rub—I haven’t. I can’t? I can’t! In waiting for the one to grace my laptop screen and sweep me off my feet, I’ve managed to find myself three months out from my wedding with absolutely nothing to wear. (Save for the pair of Neous strappy heels that I chose a month after getting engaged. No brainer there!)
Conventional bridal rule of thumb says you should purchase your wedding dress eight to nine months out from your wedding. I got engaged in March of 2023 and will wed in August of this year, which gave me ample time to sort it out. But as timeline markers came—and went—I began to realize there was an issue. At this point, if I even stepped foot inside a bridal salon, I presume my three-month deadline would give the team a conniption.
And this isn’t procrastination, dear reader, I’ve been looking consistently for over a year now to no avail. On one recent day when my bum eye was experiencing a particularly furious set of twitches and I had to return yet another dress to UPS that didn’t work out, I did something out of character: I took to Instagram. “Do I know any other brides who put off buying their dress til the last minute because they can’t find anything they like? Just me?” The responses flooded in almost immediately.
“Literally me. Didn’t have my dress until two weeks before the day.”
“Omg yes and then everything was like ‘you need to order three months in advance’ and I was like my wedding is in 30 days…”
“I picked my shoes the night before.”
“I got something cheap and ended up tailoring it to my needs because I couldn’t find what I wanted.”
“I ordered a dress four days before my wedding that a friend picked out for me.”
“Yes. Super overwhelming. Two weeks before my wedding I wound up getting a sundress for $65 at a little shop at the end of the street. I’m still fine with the decision and I still have the dress after 13 years of marriage.”
“That was me! I got mine the month before.”