Gown Testing for Wedding album

This was the only day I am a model changing many pretty dresses and stand on the platform for people to admire :)

We engaged RedBliss as our wedding photo album shooting back in February during the bridal fair in MidValley. We were only able to go for gown testing today as all the previous weekends were booked - good business huh~

We booked for the earliest time slot - 11AM, we reached even earlier, the staffs were cleaning and tidying up the place waiting for customers.

I flipped through the gowns, all are so pretty, I was tempted to try all. I ended up trying on around 20 gowns to pick 5 for photo shooting and 2 for the actual day ceremony and dinner. For my package, I was allowed to choose any dresses from their collection, but only allowed to choose 1 wedding gown and 1 evening gown from the Gown for Sale section - marketing gimmick, the more you pay, the more you get to choose so called 'special' gowns. But I even had difficulty choosing (and eliminating) the 'normal' gowns upstairs .

This was the first gown I tried on. I have seen a friend of mine wore something like that and thought it was elegant. This is from the Gown for Sale section, I gave this up because I 'had' to pick another wedding gown from this section.


Another elegant gown from Gown for Sale section, but it was a little too plain for photo shooting.



After trying on so many wedding gowns, I had made my mind on:
This for indoor photo shooting, wedding gown from the For Sale section. I love the exaggerated-big skirt (we call it the layered-cake skirt), with the bling-bling on the top, it's like a princess dress!



This for outdoor photo shooting. Simple and light, easy to walk/run/jump in it. I hope there will be clear blue sky during the shooting day and the blue beads around the neckline will be a pretty match with the sky.



This for actual day ceremony. I love the pink (if it's red then it will be PERFECT!) flower sewing at the bottom of the skirt, and it looks a bit like chinese traditional cheong sum, with a high hip-cut at the side. I picked this because it's easy to walk around in it, and comfortable to sit / go in and out of the car / bow for tea ceremony.



Next was to choose evening gowns, 3 for photo shooting, 1 for actual day. Choosing evening gown was confusing, so many designs, so many colors, I have to give up so many nice dresses!

This was my first choice, I love the sweet pink, the and furry little pin in the center.



This was worn by a model shooting for their 'For Sale Gown' album. The 'evil-looking' collar can be removed and the gown will look more 'decent' :p We called it the vampire gown. I love it at first sight. But it doesn't fit me well (or rather, I don't fit in well). The tailor said it can be altered but it will not look nice when close-ups. So have to give this up. The sales personnel were nice to allow me to wear it a little longer, haha).



This was one gown that made us 'Wow~' for at least 10 times.



I love that too. But I had to give it up too as I wanted this even more (I don't want to have gowns with same color that makes the album looks boring). It has 2 ways of wearing it - without the small jacket it looks like another princess dress, with the small jacket it looks so ancient-victorian, I always love it! If it wasn't because of the jacket, I wouldn't have chosen it.



So my choice of evening gown from the For Sale section was this - a mermaid gown. Again I love it's exaggerating-ness.



It was a tiring 3-hour gown testing session, hungry and thirsty, and what I've learned for gown testing were:
1. Book for the earliest time slot and reach there early, then you can pick all the nice dresses and try on it slowly. Another girl came in later than us, and I was holding most of the For Sale gowns. If we were late we might not be able to choose as many or we need to wait longer. If you are going to RedBliss too, going early makes sure that you get the bigger fitting room and big sofa set in front of it for the comfort of your partner/friend/parents that are going with you.

2. It will be a longgggggggg session, make sure you had your meal. Don't be an angry woman when trying on the gowns, everything will look bad too.

3. Bring those who have same taste in dresses to pick the gowns with you. Or you won't be able to pick any - too many people, too many comments. The girl at the next room seemed spending more time to get mutual agreement with her mother.

4. Photo taking are not allowed in most of the bridal shop during gown testing. We did it with my phone camera in a least obvious way. But the sales personnel that attended to us just pretended she didn't know, however, she warned us not to let others see or they will have a hard time controlling another group that came for gown testing too. You won't be able to take photo on your own in the fitting room as the sales personnel comes in to help to zip the dress and bring you out, and help unzip the dress in the fitting room and leave you to allow you to change - in short, there won't be a time you have a dress worn decently in the fitting room.

Anyway, it's a day you can be Amber Chia, so enjoy it!