The website says you have the dresses...but you don't - WHY?

Bridal salons hear this all the time because brides search on the Internet first these days and take everything they find as FACT!

Designers WANT you to be in stores looking at their dresses in person! So even if a store bought 4 samples, they will list the store on their designer site as having the line. And brides tend to interpret that as having it ALL.

Most large designers have at least 100 gowns that they are producing. I can think of one that has over 300! Stores just don't have the space to hang all the styles from all the designers they carry so they pick and choose what suits their bridal shoppers the most. Yes, they PAY ATTENTION to what you try on and even more, to what you buy.

And in case you didn't realize it, stores PAY for all those pretty dresses. Since the markup is usually double the wholesale cost, that means a store owning 100 dresses in the moderate price range (which is $700-$1500 at retail) has about $50,000 invested in dresss for you to try on!

Well, you say, that's the cost of doing business. Ah, but consider this, a bridal dress has a shelf life of 6-12 months at the most. Maybe 1 in 100 styles will last longer. So a return on the investment had better be quick!

Even more stressful to shopowners is the fact that the designers require them to buy NEW styles twice a year and they must purchase a required number of new styles. The least I dealt with was 4 per season or 8 per year. The most was 24 styles, twice a year or 48 new dresses! That's enough to fill a small shop so they are not likely to go over the required number.

My best advice to brides is NOT to take the internet listing as gospel. If you have found a style you just have to see, CALL first! The store may have had it and sold it out to someone with less than 6 months to her wedding. They may not have bought it at all.

Save yourself time and disappointment by simply checking before you make the trip.