Aside from choosing your own dress for the ceremony, there will be the small matter of the bride finding her gown. Depending on your relationship with your daughter, you may be called upon to assist her in the hunt, or she may not want you within a two-mile radius of the dress shop she's visiting. Some moms and daughters have a very hard time shopping together. Add the stress of a wedding to this situation, and a bride may honestly fear that she and her mother won't be speaking to each other at the end of a very long shopping day.

If she does want your help, and you do tend to be a bit excitable or your comments tend to be very blunt, try to cool your heels a bit and remember that the bride is probably more emotional than usual right now. She's embarking on the hunt for the dress she's dreamed of since she was a little girl. Be very careful with your comments.

Shops or Warehouses?

A bride who is looking for a traditional, big white gown will often begin her search in a bridal shop. Most of these stores require appointments. The dresses are large and unwieldy, and an employee of the store will be dispatched to carry the gowns from the rack to the dressing room, and to assist the bride as she tries on dress after dress after dress. Bottom line: Plan ahead, and don't expect to be welcomed with open arms if you're popping in off the street.

Of course, these days, a bride can alternatively head to a bridal warehouse or even shop online for her dress. Is it wise to patronize these businesses? After all, a bride can save herself a bundle — but what are the risks?

If a bride can tolerate the no-frills atmosphere of a warehouse setting, she might just walk away with a bargain. There will be no plush dressing room, no beverages, no store employees catering to her needs. She'll have to hunt through the racks herself to find the perfect dress. However, before your daughter gets too excited by the amount of money she's saving by forgoing the personal service, you should advise her that when she buys a dress from a warehouse, she will be responsible for finding a seamstress for any alterations and/or repairs, an expense that may just defeat the purpose of buying off the rack.

Buying online comes with its own set of worries. Most online bridal shops (and auctions) do not allow returns, and since it's impossible to try a dress on in cyberspace, purchasing a gown this way is very risky. Even if your daughter knows the exact dress she's looking for, she's better off giving her business — and her money — to a local shop. If something goes wrong with the order or the dress, it will be much easier for her to get her point across (i.e., someone had better fix the problem quickly or risk the wrath of the bride) when she's dealing with a real live person standing in front of her in a dress shop instead of a website.

Make a Game Plan

Shopping for a bride's gown can be an exhausting, head-spinning experience. Unless she finds the dress she's looking for on your first day out, you may find that all of the frocks she's trying on are starting to look very similar. Where once you could differentiate between a quality gown and a cheap one, you're having trouble seeing past the tulle and the beads, and you're leaning toward a dress you suspect you might hate.

How might you avoid shopping overload and confusion before it starts? By sitting down with your daughter before you visit your first bridal shop and discussing what she wants versus what might not work. For example, if your daughter is very pale, pure white may not be the right color for her. She might look best in an off-white dress, or something with a little color added to it. The hottest style may not be the best pick for her shape — and there are far too many brides out there who go for the current trend instead of considering what looks best on them.

Look Away!

So you've put your time in, schlepping from shop to shop, discussing the merits of silk versus chiffon, debating whether white or eggshell is a better color on her, oohing and ahhing over the best gowns — and your daughter has chosen the most unflattering dress she tried on. And she loves it. What are you supposed to do now? Take a week off from shopping so that both of you can mull things over. When you return to the shop, she may notice the obvious flaws in her decision.

If it's a matter of style — the dress makes her look very heavy, for example, or it makes her look gaunt, or the color just drains the life from her cheeks — these are things you're right to point out to her. They will show in the wedding pictures, and she'll realize too late that this dress didn't suit her at all.

If, on the other hand, this is just a difference of taste (yours versus hers), you need to hold your tongue. You might hate all the beading on the dress she's chosen, or you might have an objection to the length of the train. As long as the gown she's chosen doesn't look horrible on her (there's a very fine line here, and you may have to overcome your personal aversion to certain fabrics or styles), there's no valid reason for her not to wear it to her wedding. You may state your opinion once — nicely — then drop it.

Time to Accessorize!

She'll also be shopping for a headpiece and/or veil, and she really should try these on with her gown. Head-pieces are meant to accentuate the gown — not vice versa. If she's chosen a very plain gown, her headpiece shouldn't weigh ten pounds and be covered with gaudy decorations. The only way to be absolutely sure that the head-piece and gown will complement each other is to shop for them simultaneously.