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Trunk sales or trunk shows are sales where designers (including top designers) bring their whole collections to a sale. The sales are known as “trunk sales” because designers often show up with whole trunks of clothing. For years, these sales have been the events where women could buy amazing designer clothes for next to nothing. Now, many top designers are having wedding dress trunk shows as well and the deals are just as incredible. If you want a stunning designer dress but don’t want to spend tens of thousands, a trunk sale may be the place to buy your dress for next to nothing.

Best of all, the wedding dresses brought to trunk sales are often items that have not yet even been made available to boutiques. While many trunk sales are a little chaotic – no dressing rooms and no personnel, just tons of people hoping to get deals, wedding dress trunk sales tend to be a little more civilized. Some even feature personal consultations with fashion experts. Some are still the traditional push-and-shove shopping experiences.

Before heading to a trunk show to buy your perfect wedding dress, spend some time browsing websites and magazines to get a sense of the styles you love. Decisions tend to be made quickly at trunk sales as people snap up the best fashions, so you need to be prepared.

You will need to spend some time researching trunk sales and trunk shows, since these events tend not to be advertised. Many take place between January and March and most are word-of-mouth, so your best bet is to visit blogs, social networking sites and to contact designers directly to ask about upcoming sales and shows.

Some trunk shows require appointments or reservations. If this is the case for a show or sale that interests you, do not delay. Book your spot at once. When you actually show up, wear something snug that you can easily slip a dress over. The deep-discount trunk sales, especially, will likely not have dressing rooms. Always bring cash as well and come ready to buy – these are generally not dresses you can put aside and think about. If you find a dress you love you have to be ready to buy.

If you are getting married soon, you may be thinking of flower girl dresses to make the little helper in your wedding feel great. This is a great time of year to shop for flower girl dresses, since new spring dresses are arriving (including dresses that might be great for your flower girl) and holiday dresses (including children’s dresses) are on sale.

You will want to begin with a color scheme. The flower girl should match the rest of the wedding party. Some brides like to match the flower girl dresses with the bridesmaid dresses. Others want a different look entirely, only with some similar colors. You may also want to narrow down the styles of dresses you are willing to consider.

Once you have a general idea of the dresses you like, track down the dresses. You may wish to take the flower girl with you shopping to try on dresses. Many flower girls are very excited about the idea of choosing a dress as well, so it may be a nice touch to allow your flower girl to select from a few different styles you approve.

When buying flower girl dresses, keep in mind that if your wedding is still many months away, your flower girls may grow quite a bit in that time. Buy a larger dress and have the flower girl come in a week or two before the big event for a fitting and for alterations.

Let’s face it: bridesmaid dresses don’t have the best of reputations. Thanks to the fact that few brides seem to prefer overly ruffled, overly tacky gowns, all brides get a bad reputation. It doesn’t have to be that grim. If you are the lucky bride looking for great dresses for your bridesmaids, here are some tips:

1) Take your bridesmaids shopping with you. While you will ultimately decide on the bridesmaid dresses for your ceremony, allowing your bridesmaids to have some input can help everyone feel better about the dresses. Even letting bridesmaids choose from a series of dresses you have pre-selected can be a good way to take everyone’s fashion input into consideration.

2) Check out all your options. Visit websites, bridal shows and flip through magazines with your bridesmaids to see lots of bridesmaid dresses before you decide.

3) Go outside the bridal shop. Most bridal shops focus on bridal dresses and sometimes the selection of bridesmaid dresses suffers as a result. Some stores even stock just a few basics. Try visiting department stores or formal wear stores to look for bridesmaid dresses that look simply like nice dresses.

4) Think simple. The complaint against many bridesmaid dresses is that they are too much – the skirts are huge, there’s too much frou frou, there are too many ruffles, and so forth. While it is the bride’s privilege to select whatever bridesmaid dresses she wants, selecting a simpler and more elegant gown does mean staying away from that dreaded prom dress look.