Choosing the dress is such an emotional process; you want to know that it's going to make it to your wedding intact and looking as good as it did in the bridal shop. The very idea of packing and/or shipping a wedding dress is enough to give some brides the shakes — it's as if they're sending their child off in the mail. This section will give you some tips for making sure that your dress has as nice a trip as you do.

Pack It Up

If you choose a simple enough ensemble, you can pack it and take it along to your destination yourself, but do so carefully. Ideally, your dress should be boxed and wrapped in tissue paper. If you're driving to your wedding site, make sure you have plenty of room for the dress box in the car. (In other words, don't plan on piling luggage on top of the box or — heaven forbid! — strapping it to the roof.)

If you're boarding a flight to your wedding and taking your dress along, you may have a couple of options — call your airline to get the best recommendation. The best way to make sure your dress makes it to your destination is to never let it out of your sight. Ask your airline if you will be able to hang the dress in a garment bag and place it in one of the closets on the plane. If this isn't possible, ask how you can best prepare your dress to be a carry-on item. If hanging it is out of the question, you may be able to at least lay it flat in an overhead compartment.

You really, really want to avoid checking your dress with your luggage. You can stand at that check-in counter and explain your situation to the airline agent using very strong language, and you might even receive his personal guarantee that your dress will arrive at your location with you. But guess what? There is no such guarantee unless you personally walk out onto the tarmac and load your luggage into the cargo bay yourself (something that is not recommended, as you're likely to be arrested for being in restricted territory — that zero-tolerance policy extends to brides, too). Even if it's never happened to you, you no doubt know somebody whose luggage was lost, never to be seen again. How awful would it be to arrive at your destination only to discover that your dress has taken off for parts unknown?

All right — you don't want to hear this lost-luggage admonition? You have faith in the airline and you just want to know how to pack a big old dress? Box the dress. Wrap it in tissue paper to lessen its chance of wrinkling. Buy a big suitcase that can hold the dress box. (If you simply check the box at the ticket counter, there's a chance it could be crushed en route.) Luggage is inspected these days for the presence of weapons and the like, so cross your fingers that the x-ray machine does its job well and that no one needs to go into your suitcase, open the box, and paw through the folds of your dress looking for anything suspicious.

Shipping Options

If you're going to send your dress to your site through the mail or through another shipping carrier, plan for it to arrive good and early, at least a week to ten days before your scheduled arrival so that any delays that may occur don't send you into a complete frenzy. Depending on where you live, you may have countless shipping options, or only one or two. No matter. Follow the same directions no matter who you're handing that dress to:

• Protect the dress. Wrapping the dress in tissue paper helps to stop massive wrinkling. Wrapping the dress in plastic will help to protect it from moisture. Do both.

• Box the dress. The shop you bought the dress from will have a box for you. Don't take no for an answer.

• Rebox the dress. Put the dress box into a shipping box so that the inner box doesn't get crushed. Add whatever cushioning is available to protect the inner box from excessive shifts during shipping. Professional shipping stores have foam peanuts or bubble wrap on hand for this purpose.

• Insure the dress. When you're shipping a book or a pair of shoes, do you really care if they get lost? No; you can skip the insurance with those. In this case, though, you want assurance that your dress will arrive where and when it's supposed to — and that someone else will pay for it if it doesn't.

When you walk in the door of the shipping store, tell the clerk what you're sending and then let her take the lead. She may have even better ideas or options than those discussed here.

Your resort's wedding coordinator will be able to receive and store the dress for you. If you're not planning a resort wedding but you will be staying in a hotel, the concierge can sign for your package and put it in a spot for safekeeping. Make sure to call ahead to make these arrangements.

One more word of advice: Before you try to ship your dress to a foreign country, be sure to check its customs policy. Some countries charge very expensive fees on foreign packages, and some countries may have restrictions in place on what types of goods can come into the country in the first place.

Buying a Dress at Your Destination Spot

Is it a good idea to purchase your dress ahead of time in the same town where you'll be having your wedding? That depends. If you know you're going to be back in town frequently enough for fittings, then it might be a good idea to do this kind of one-stop shopping.

These circumstances tend to be on the rare side, however. It's not recommended that you choose a dress from a random dressmaker when you happen to be in town once, and then trust this stranger to make the dress look perfect in a matter of days when you roll back into town for your wedding.

It's possible to have fittings done at the very last minute, but you have to be dealing with a dress shop and seamstress you trust implicitly. Alterations are usually easy for a professional, but keep in mind that there are good seamstresses and bad seamstresses, and some dresses are just harder to work with than others.

Generally speaking, it's best to have your dress nearby so that you can have it ready for the wedding as early as you choose. You don't want to arrive at your destination only to discover that the bodice of your dress is four sizes too big — and then find that no one can fix it.