Sharing tips and my own gown hunting experience. Even though I ended up renting just one gown from The Gown Connoisseur (TGC), I visited quite a few in the beginning and some just for fun. I procrastinated on this post for quite long as it required sorting through 460+ photos of gown hunting. But that's done now, so I'm finally posting this!
Tips
Search for inspiration on Pinterest, Dayre and even online shops (Taobao, Aliexpress etc) to show the shop assistants what you like.
That said, keep an open mind! If you watch Say Yes To The Dress (which is surprisingly entertaining even if you're not getting married), you'll realise that sometimes the style you like the least/think is not flattering can turn out to be The One. Proved true for me with strapless dresses! This leads me to the next tip.
Gown shops like Bqueens are great places to start, as you can try on as many gowns as you like without pressure. This lets you try out different styles, colours and cuttings before you decide what you like/dislike. Once you have a clearer idea, you can visit places like TGC which try to match your requirements quite closely, or other gown studios which allow only a fixed number of try-ons. Some will keep strictly to this rule, while others are more flexible.
Follow gown shops you like on Facebook/Instagram so you know when they have sales/promotions. You can also save photos of gowns you like from their collection. If there's a particular gown you really want to try, do check with them beforehand if it's in the studio to save yourself a wasted trip!
Wear the right clothes - namely, a nubra and clothes with pockets when going for fittings. The nubra definitely helps you have a better gauge of v-neck/strapless etc dresses look on you. Pockets so that you can keep your phone with you and secretly take photos if photography is not allowed (tip from my friend haha). For gown sales, strapless tops and shorts are the best attire as you can easily try on any dress type even if there are no fitting rooms available.
Take photos whenever possible. Not only will it help you remember the gown much better, you can also see how it looks in photos. Some gowns feel and look great when you try them on, but you may have second thoughts after scrutinising the photos back home.
Studios I Visited
Gown Sales
1) Kelly's Bridals
This was my first ever gown-trying experience! The first gown I tried on was actually a lace dress with sleeves, which I had always thought would be my ideal style. However, it looked so awful on me that I didn't even come out of the dressing room or take a photo of it. And after trying on other gowns with sleeves, I realised that cap sleeves really don't look good on me. The second dress (rightmost photo) I tried was the one I ended up buying for $480 because it looked surprisingly flattering. I'm now selling it here. In fact, I ended up with 4 strapless gowns for my wedding, the exact cutting I thought I would shun away from. Lesson learnt, it's good to try different styles! And also wear strapless, because as you can see, I'm wearing a strapped top which makes it hard to visualise the gown without the straps. The leftmost gown was a close second choice for purchasing. I would say that Kelly's Bridals doesn't have the nicest gowns or the most variety, but there are gems if you look and the owner is warm and friendly. Normal pricing is around $900+ if I remember correctly.
2) Bridal Signature
Not a very well-known shop, and not much selection of gowns as well. They had mostly simple ballgowns. I did really like this cheongsam-style dress though, mostly for its back. But it was being sold at $700+ even for the sale, and I definitely wasn't ready to spend that amount on a dress I'll wear for less than an hour. This is a Hong Kong brand if I'm not wrong.
3) Fleur D'sign
No pictures allowed, although my friend helped me secretly snap some as I was really considering buying a $100+ dress as my AD gown (thankfully I didn't, since Janan pointed out I was going to TGC the next weekend). The sales here was really worth it, as they had different tiers of gowns starting from $100, as well as gowns for mothers etc. Definitely worth checking out! Even though it was crowded, they didn't allow trying on the dresses outside, so you had to wait for your turn in the dressing room. There would also be an assistant to help you, which is nice but also means no taking photos secretly (my friend helped me take some in the mirror outside since the area was crowded).
Gown Studios
4) Bqueens
The second place I visited after Kelly's Bridals. It was such a fun experience trying on gowns here! I came with my maid-of-honour and we had a whole room to ourselves, plus the assistant was quite chillax in letting us look through the gowns and trying on as many as I wanted. I think it differs from assistant to assistant though. Plus in hindsight, I realised it may not always be a good thing to search on your own because it's harder to find the right cutting and size. A lot of the white gowns I picked looked too large on me. The assistant brought out this gown from their new collection which I liked the most, but perhaps not in gold. My other friend managed to find it on Taobao, but not sure about the quality. Took a boomerang because it was so fluffy to swish:
I tried on a few coloured gowns too, and really loved the peach one! This was also the inspiration for my Taobao gown. Generally the staff at Bqueens are quite nice and not pushy at all, and there's no limit to the number of gowns you try. The owner Valent is also really nice and responsive over Whatsapp, sending me photos of similar gowns to the inspirations I send her and letting me know whether they're in-store or not. The pricing is also reasonable at $600/gown. They also have packages with established photographers like Trouve and Bobby Kiran. Definitely worth checking out! The only reason I didn't sign with them was the white gowns seemed large and outdated, but now I think it's really because I didn't know how to choose them myself and should have let the assistant help me more.
5) Fairy Godmother's Bridal
Another place well-known among budget brides is this HDB-based studio run by mother and daughters. They rent out designer gowns like Vera Wang at reasonable prices starting at $500. Their selection is more curated, but they do bring in new gowns too which they'll share on their Facebook page. I think this is more for the a-la-carte brides where you only want to rent one gown.
6) Odelia Bridal
My friends and I dropped in at the Tanjong Pagar studios as we had some time one day. Even though we had no appointment and I told them I only wanted a-la-carte, they were friendly and cheerful in helping me (and even my friend who wasn't engaged at the time) try on gowns. They were not pushy at all! This is also where I got the idea of the mesh back for my evening gown (top row, centre photo). Similar to other studios, the a-la-carte pricing was around $1000+ for one gown and min. $700+ if you take 2-3 gowns. I can't remember the exact pricing, but $700 was like my threshold so anything above that was out.
7) Digio
No pictures allowed too, but I tried on a few white and coloured gowns. I've followed Digio on Instagram for a long time and the designs always look so beautiful there! They really had a lot of levels of gowns (plus new collections every few months), but if you're doing an outdoor wedding you may not be able to choose from their newer collections. Pricing wise was similar to Odelia. The salesperson was slightly pushy, like "I can only give you this price if you sign today and I'll immediately book those gowns that you liked" (even though I didn't super love those). But it wasn't to the point of being too off-putting, so I would say they're still quite ok in terms of that! They are, however, strict with the no photos policy, so didn't manage to take any at all. I understand the policy of not allowing photos because they don't want people to copy their designs, but if I can't remember what a gown looks like it's also harder for me to want to go back/choose that studio.
8) Beautiful Love Wedding
This was by far the worst experience in terms of pushiness, so definitely not recommended for a-la-carte brides! I've also followed this studio on Facebook for a long time, and had initially ruled them out since I was going a-la-carte. However, I was pleasantly surprised (initially) when my friend showed me that they had a-la-carte gowns for $600+. Their gowns are definitely on the more dramatic side. I tried mostly coloured gowns, and when I looked through the white gowns I didn't see any that I liked at all. The assistant was nice initially, but she kept trying to push their packages even though I told her from the start that I'm doing a-la-carte. She lamented how expensive my a-la-carte items were throughout the appointment (which was really really annoying), once she found out that our flowers package was the only thing we hadn't booked, she brought out their album for me to look at without us asking (and nothing that we liked). When I told her honestly that I didn't like any of the white gowns, she said she's a designer and they can customize one for me. This was towards the end of the appointment, and we were just like "Why is she telling us this now and is it supposed to make us want to work with her?" I was quite irritated leaving the appointment.
9) The Warehouse Bridal
Dropped by these last 2 places more for fun. I thought The Warehouse Bridal would be cheap after reading SGBudgetBride's post. However, if you're going there as a budget bride do manage your expectations. They have different ranges of gowns with classic range from $300-600 and premium range from $600-2500. Most of the gowns fall into the latter category, with the one above being $800+.
10) Far East Plaza
This is not as well-known, but Far East Plaza has a few shops with bridal/formal gowns on the third and fourth floors. They have white gowns as well, but mostly Taobao type. There is much more variety for coloured gowns. It's around $400-900 to purchase, so quite worth it. Not all shops do alteration though.
I tried this one at the shop above "True Love by Hue", and I think it was $400+. I quite liked it as it was lightweight and sparkly.
The gown I bought from Taobao is pretty much the red version of this.
Separate post on TGC as I went back a few times and ended up doing a customized AD gown there.
Shopping as an A-la-Carte Bride
Shopping as an a-la-carte bride can be hard, as a lot of places push their packages. Which is why having a budget/threshold is useful ($700 was the max for me). If you're going this route, I would suggest sticking to the studios that are more friendly to a-la-carte brides, such as Bqueens, The Fairy Godmother's Bridal and TGC. Most of the Tanjong Pagar studios are not very friendly (literally and wallet-wise) to a-la-carte brides.
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