2020 was a year unlike any other, and one nobody saw coming. Many brides who planned to get married had to cancel their weddings, brides who were about to start planning their wedding had to put it on the back burner, and so many wedding vendors struggled to navigate all the cancellations. 2020 also changed how many boutiques run their bridal appointments. Keep reading to learn more about how we, and many other bridal boutiques, have adapted to the pandemic to keep everyone safe, healthy, and still finding the dress of their dreams!

Many brides, upon getting engaged, immediately want to book a dress shopping appointment. Maybe we are biased, but it really is the best part of wedding planning, so we get it! A lot of bride’s book appointments before they even know their wedding date, venue, or really any other details about their big day. They want to get ideas and start envisioning themselves as a bride. Typically, many bridal stores welcome these types of appointments, as we know deciding on your gown is one of the major decisions you’ll need to make while planning your big day.

Fast forward to 2020, pandemic hits, and we all learn the importance of social distancing and wearing your mask. Until we can find ourselves ‘back to normal’, appointments for fun or just to play dress up aren’t such a good idea. Bridal consultants are exposed every time they work with a bride and are in awfully close proximity with you inside the dressing room. If you aren’t ready to say yes to a dress and know you won’t be open to doing so even if you find something that you love, you may want to consider holding off on making your appointment. This keeps you, the bridal boutiques staff, and your guests from exposing one another unnecessarily. This isn’t to say that bridal stores should require you to purchase a gown – sometimes you just don’t find the one! It simply means that if you are not on a serious search yet, keep your browsing to Pinterest for now.

Something else to keep in mind is that every bridal boutique is doing their best to keep everything as sanitary and clean as possible. Hereat Love, we take extra time between appointments to sanitize everything! We want to keep our staff and our sweet brides healthy. Wiping down tables, doorknobs, bridal clips and even leather couches is no problem at all. Sanitizing delicate lace, silk gowns is another story. You can’t just wipe the gowns down with a Clorox wipe after all! With this in mind, we are taking extra precautions and pulling the gowns off the rack for the bride. This minimizes the gowns being unnecessarily touched and exposed. It also streamlines your appointment... If you budgeted $2,500for your gown and know you can’t spend more, why even look at a gown that is $7,000?

Finally, and perhaps the most important change many bridal stores have implemented, is guest count restrictions. The more people, the greater the risk of exposure. To be honest bringing a lot of people along to dress shop with you is never advised in the first place. The more opinions, the more chance for the bride to be overwhelmed and confused. We always say what matters is how YOU feel in your dress and that you love it! Here at Love, we still want you to be able to bring along those most important to you to experience your Yes moment, so we allow each bride to bring a maximum of 5 others. We encourage you to bring 3 or less but again, this is your day and should be as you envisioned it (with minor pandemic adjustments here and there). Be sure to ask the bridal boutiques you intend on visiting what their specific policies are.

As we start a new year, we are all anxious for things to go back to normal. Until they do, let’s all work together, stay positive, and try to enjoy the special moments that are still happening. If you are concerned about anything related to your appointment, remember we are always just a phone call away.

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