The Two Biggest Mistakes That Brides Make On Say Yes To The Dress, According To Randy

Randy Fenoli Say Yes To The Dress

If you’ve seen TLC’s Say Yes To The Dress, then you know that all weddings aren’t just about the love two people have for each other and their decision to share that love with all the other people they care about on one big, glorious day. No, there's also the drama that can go down planning the wedding, and more specifically, choosing the perfect dress to wear on the wedding day. There are so many choices to make while planning a wedding, and fashion designer/longtime face of Say Yes To The Dress Randy Fenoli reveals two of the biggest mistakes a bride can make when shopping for her wedding dress.

Randy Fenoli has helped thousands of brides find their perfect wedding dress, and I can only imagine how many of those blushing brides were a lot to handle or how often things didn’t go according to plan. Fenoli is a pro though and has this thing down to a science, so in an interview with Insider, he tells the two worst things people can do on Say Yes To The Dress that are all too common.

According to Randy Fenoli, not everyone is mature enough to even be getting married, because the brides don’t always seem to communicate with the rest of their party. It’s the bride's job to let the bridal party know what the expectations are about what she wants, and if she doesn’t a lot of time could be wasted on the store floor when picking out and trying on dresses.

If the bride does not clue her bridal party in on her budget, style, and even her insecurities then the people she brings with her to the appointment could pull all kinds of dresses that are way out of her price range, not at all what she was envisioning for herself, or accentuating a part of her body that she would rather forget about all together.

Speaking of budget, apparently you definitely need one when you’re shopping for wedding dresses. Randy Fenoli says the second mistake brides make is telling him (or any other consultant) that they have no budget. While most brides probably do this so that they are not limited in what kind of dresses they are brought, the consultant who is working with the bride typically will make a commission off the sale. So, of course if the bride states that she has no budget, a very expensive dress will be brought to them.

Randy Fenoli says if a bride tells him they have no budget, he will bring the bride a $30,000 dress. A consultant needs a number they can go off of so they don’t end up bringing a bride a dress that they fall in love with, just to end up out of their price range. That’s surely one way to ruin the entire experience! Fenoli summed up the mistakes and how to avoid them, saying:

Sit down with your entourage before you walk into the salon and say, 'Listen, I don't want to look like Cinderella, so don't pull any big poofy ball gowns. Number two, my budget's $1,000, so don't pull a $10,000 dress unless you're going to put in the other $9,000. And number three, I'm really sensitive about my hips, so when I'm on the pedestal in front of everyone in the salon and everybody is looking at me, don't say that... This is what happens when you don't have these conversations. And I guess if they did, we wouldn't have a show.

Listen, Randy Fenoli has been doing this a long time, so his advice is some that I would surely take in this particular subject. A new season of the long-running TLC series Say Yes To The Dress just premiered on July 17 and new episodes will drop every Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, but you can also catch Fenoli in action streaming on the TLC Go App, Discovery+, and Hulu with Live TV.

Carlie Hoke
Content Writer

Constantly thinking about books, coffee, and the existential dread I feel from Bo Burnham’s Inside.  While writing I’m also raising a chaotic toddler, who may or may not have picked up personality traits from watching one too many episodes of Trailer Park Boys.