A new app lets brides discover the best wedding dress styles suited for their body before ever stepping foot inside a bridal shop.
Planning a wedding -- and especially dress shopping -- should be some of
the happiest times of a woman's life. But many brides report feeling
overwhelmed by the planning, even breaking down into tears in dress
salons.
But a just-released app promises to expedite the wedding-dress buying process and cut some of that stress.
“With thousands of wedding dress designs available today, dress shopping
can be very overwhelming for a bride-to-be,” said Hillary Sica,
executive director for the Wedding Dress Studio app. “We designed
Wedding Dress Studio to alleviate some of that burden and help women
visualize what silhouettes, styles, and even dress fabrics will
potentially look the best on them.”
The company behind the app said it uses "augmented reality technology to
revolutionize how brides-to-be search, find, and buy wedding dresses."
It's designed to be used before that first trip to the bridal salon so
the bride to be goes in having a solid idea of what she does -- and does
not -- want.
The dresses shown aren't actual dresses -- a person couldn't go into a
store and ask for a specific dress they "tried on" but Sica told ABC
News "they are simulated dresses that have similar real-life
counterparts, but they are not images of actual dresses. However, we
have created the dress images to be as close to the real-life
counterpart as possible."
Users start by uploading their full body photo, and adjusting shoulder
and hip points in order to fit of the dress on their image. The app then
lets users design their own dress by choosing the silhouette, neckline,
fabric and embellishments. The app has a gallery of nearly 300 free
gown designs. Once a user has finalized their "dream dress," the gown
can be saved to the device and shared on social media.
Popular wedding planning site The Knot also has an app, but theirs
allows uses to search through designer wedding gowns and bookmark the
ones that appeal. It also tells the user what shops in their area carry
the dress of interest. Brides.com has a "virtual dressing room" app that
allows the user to try on designer dresses after uploading their own
photo from camera roll or Facebook.
