Tips for Taking Flight with Your Wedding Dress

Read up on our advice for traveling with your bridal gown before the big day.

Tips for Taking Flight with Your Wedding Dress

By Megan Simpson

tips-for-traveling-with-your-wedding-dress-bridal-gown-on-a-flight
Photo: Lauren Feddersen Photography

Logistics of a wedding can be complicated to organize. There are so many aspects that need to be factored in whilst scheduling the events of the big day, it’s easy to get caught up in some while accidentally neglecting others. What’s more, if you’re hosting destination nuptials, there will likely be a greater number of additional details to consider. Arranging hotel accommodations and booking vendors are amongst the extra factors you’ll deal with; however, for brides who are also having to travel to their wedding location, transporting the gown is quite pertinent. Getting your ensemble safely from point A to point B may not seem so difficult, but in the world of airline travel and luggage, it’s always important to be prepared.

Follow the tips below to prepare for your flight with your bridal dress:

- Don’t check your luggage. Checked luggage can become separated from you much more easily than a carry-on bag. We also don’t recommend shipping your gown, especially with the logistics of your final fitting needing to be somewhat close to your date. Packages can get lost, possessions can be delivered to the wrong address – there are too many factors when taking this route. 

- Call ahead. Speak with your specific airline – make sure they know your flight number and can verify what kind of plane you’ll be in – about their garment bag policies. In all likelihood, they’ve had a bride travel with her wedding dress in the past. Sometimes, the captain’s closet can be used to store your frock for the duration of the flight, so it’s important to know if that may be an option ahead of time so you can plan accordingly.

- Get priority boarding. Splurge a little on a priority boarding pass and/or first class ticket. For planes that have the closet available, you’ll have a better chance of gaining access to it if you’re sitting near the very front of the aircraft.

- Find a seat for the gown. Whether you pull a flight attendant aside to ask if there are any empty seats or you book an extra seat specifically for your gown, you know it won’t be folded or squished. If you’re able to sit next to the dress, you can ensure its safety. 

- Place it in an overhead compartment. You can store the ensemble in a carry-on bag fully – or at least mostly – dedicated to the gown and cushion the space around it. Alternatively, if space and the size of luggage allows, you can lay your garment bag across the top of the suitcases once the compartment is full. With this method, be sure to ask permission from fellow passengers with belongings in that bin before doing so, or make sure the dress only lays across your own luggage. Keep a watch eye out over the course of the flight to make sure no one disturbs or moves the dress too much.

Discover how to break in your bridal gown, read up on tips for summer brides from an expert designer, and watch a behind-the-scenes show about running a bridal design house.

Opening photo by Joe Laurin Photography

Wedding news