Post all "Knock Off Wedding Dress" questions/comments here

[Preciousmi811]

I got sample pictures of my moms and my second dress. If you remember I got my first dress from Landy and it was huge, so when I took it for alterations I ordered a second dress from Gianinar just in case the alterations couldn't save the dress.

 

Gianinar made both dresses in 30 days but I emailed them every day with all correspondences and pictures. I think they were overjoyed to get rid of me. I paid extra for fast shipping so I am expecting the dress any day now. I took the initiative and sent them money most of the time instead of having to wait for them to request it. It was alot of worry so if you are unsure order several dress ahead of time and you can pick which one later.

 

Here is mine:

 

I hope it is as awesome as it looks, I'll let you know when I get it.

 

Here is my moms:

 

What do you think?

[pamphilia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Preciousmi811 I got sample pictures of my moms and my second dress. If you remember I got my first dress from Landy and it was huge, so when I took it for alterations I ordered a second dress from Gianinar just in case the alterations couldn't save the dress. Gianinar made both dresses in 30 days but I emailed them every day with all correspondences and pictures. I think they were overjoyed to get rid of me. I paid extra for fast shipping so I am expecting the dress any day now. I took the initiative and sent them money most of the time instead of having to wait for them to request it. It was alot of worry so if you are unsure order several dress ahead of time and you can pick which one later. What do you think?

i think your dress looks fantastic!!! wow, only 12 days until your wedding, i hope it comes in soon for you!

[mimi73]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Preciousmi811 I got sample pictures of my moms and my second dress. If you remember I got my first dress from Landy and it was huge, so when I took it for alterations I ordered a second dress from Gianinar just in case the alterations couldn't save the dress. Gianinar made both dresses in 30 days but I emailed them every day with all correspondences and pictures. I think they were overjoyed to get rid of me. I paid extra for fast shipping so I am expecting the dress any day now. I took the initiative and sent them money most of the time instead of having to wait for them to request it. It was alot of worry so if you are unsure order several dress ahead of time and you can pick which one later. Here is mine: I hope it is as awesome as it looks, I'll let you know when I get it. Here is my moms: What do you think?

Wow! Dresses look beautiful!
I am excited to see them, I can't wait for mine..... and it's only been a week since I ordered them

[WretchedDeviant]

Wow, both dresses are beautiful yours just takes my breath away.

[KJT1985]

WretchedDeviant I had to go find your dress by gianinarbridal. They DID do a great job. I definitely agree on the color issue though.

 

Precious - SO pretty! I love the rouching! It's going to make your waist look SO tiny!!

[imafoxx]

I have a question about "knock-off dresses" as I'm an obvious noob lol Are you ladies going to bridal salons and trying on dresses and keeping track of what looks good and you like and then looking for them online?

[JanineA]

Thanks JackieC, Mimi, Sylvie!! I put my deposit today to gianinar but I haven't sent my measurements yet. I have to get that done hopefully this weekend. They have already let me know the dress will be made from polyester-satin (I have no idea what material that is..lol). I will of course keep you ladies posted every step of the way! ;-)

[KJT1985]

Quote:

Originally Posted by imafoxx I have a question about "knock-off dresses" as I'm an obvious noob lol Are you ladies going to bridal salons and trying on dresses and keeping track of what looks good and you like and then looking for them online?

It's what I did but some don't. Sometimes you just can't find exactly what you're looking for so you put pieces of dresses that you loved together into a custom one. Or, as in my case, you fall in love with a dress that is over your budget and don't want to settle! Some people have ordered dresses without ever trying them on because they're cheap and they like the dress, figuring you can't go wrong for $150-200 even if you end up hating it!

[mimi73]

Quote:

Originally Posted by imafoxx I have a question about "knock-off dresses" as I'm an obvious noob lol Are you ladies going to bridal salons and trying on dresses and keeping track of what looks good and you like and then looking for them online?

I went and tried on dresses at a few bridal salons. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, but I did see what styles looked good on me.
I found 2 dresses online that I loved, and ordered replicas of those. One would have been $2100 retail and the other $4200+.....Yikes! This way, I have only spent $350 between the 2 dresses, including shipping. I hope it won't be a waste, but I can stomach only losing that, opposed to thousands

[WretchedDeviant]

imafoxx: I'm trying on dresses in another week or two and I'm not ordering my dress right now I have a few things I need to spend money on that're more important but I think anyone thinking about buying a dress of the internet should try on dresses first or have a good understanding of their body shape and what looks good on it, their personal preferences, and their skin tone to what colors look good on them. Me, I'm an hourglass so I can put on almost anything and it looks good, that doesn't mean I like everything, I want to feel beautiful and I that means something that hugs my body (but not too tight), and my skin tone looks horrible with white but ivory and champagne are amazing. So it's really the personal opinion, do you know your likes and dislikes with clothing enough to order something you don't know how it'd look on you exactly? And then what happens when you're trying on this dress and that and find you LOVE this bodice but HATE the skirt with it? You can't really tell the shop cut off this skirt and sew this one onto it (well, sure you could but most places would blatantly refuse). Or you see a photo of a dress no longer in production? The only way to get a dress that's no longer being made is either get a knockoff or go through the tiresome task of hunting down an original which is usually very hard to do. The dress I want isn't in production anymore, and throughout all my hunting to find the real thing I've found one used for $8000 and some pictures of it from a woman who bought it. So not only do I not have the money to shell out for such an expensive dress but even if I did I couldn't get it brand new, where being used, you risk the previous owner not taking care of it, it having stains from their wedding, moths and silverfish (I've heard silk is a delicacy to these bugs).

 

KJT: I know, they did a wonderful job on it I mean I have close-ups from a woman who actually shelled out the $25000 for the real thing and there are A LOT of rhinestones on it which Gianinar doesn't seem to add although I will be sending them pictures of the close-ups I have just in case it was another oversight from the pictures but I've also lined up tailors in my area that do things like that, it'll cost me another couple hundred if I don't do it myself but the dress is so much more stunning with those little details.

 

 

Now, if you look at the Gianinar remake you can see you it's not exactly the same but the embroidery they did looks almost the same. I can honestly say in my hunt for the dress (before I knew who even made it) the recreation at lightinthebox for $700 looked horrible...they used a matte satin where Pnina uses silk satin so it's a VERY noticeable difference (silk satin shines and has a flow that polyester satin can't reproduce and so matte satin? Ewww), the flowers were too big, they made the off the shoulder flowers too tight and too close together so they were on the shoulder and didn't give that "sweetheart" look (the flowers could honestly be worn either way but they had strung the flowers too close together that if you tried to wear it off the shoulder it'd just look...trashy), the cuts they did on the satin for the flowers was bad, too, embroidery was minimal, as if they were too lazy to make the effort, the only good thing I could say is they got the train somewhat right and the lace they used in the front opening was good (looks exactly like what Pnina used). But compared to this $150 work from Gianinar...it's a train wreck. I'm going to love to see your dress from them when you get it.

 

JanineA: Polyester satin is the majority of what wedding dresses are made of, so now I bet you can get a better idea, it shines somewhat with the light, it's polyester so it doesn't breath well, but it's the standard for wedding dresses except when you find designers like Pnina Tornai (the dress I love), she uses silk for pretty much all of her dresses. But it's the standard for wedding dresses so no worries, as long as they don't use a bad quality satin it should look great (but luckily, Gianinar seems to use a decent quality satin).

 

I have a question for you girls, do you think the dress I'm looking at will be too much for outdoors...what I'm envisioning in my mind is a faerie-like wedding, a ceremony in the evening right when the sun is setting and string lights from the trees to make them look like faerie lights and have antique-looking lanterns hanging around,and the place I have in mind, I would have a long enough walk to the front that it would give plenty of time to show off the dress and gorgeous train (I'm only worried about having such a low guest count leaving so much of that area empty but I could set up rows as only a couple people to a row instead of more so it would make the rows longer and not make some people have to try to look over others), I'd also probably have some cloth put down for the aisle (so to say) so it wouldn't be dragging all sorts of stuff behind me. I'm looking at churches, too, but the park I'm thinking of has these gorgeous antique-style street lights that come on and give a beautiful look to the park. I've asked this in my own thread at a couple different places and I have to say...every response was rude, constructive criticism is one thing but being catty?

 

Oh dear, I wrote a book. I'm sorry.