Beware this article may make you think twice.

I am getting married in July and have been planning this for about 18 months. From the beginning I knew we were going to need to get married on a tight budget.

Therefore I searched through all the options for everything to make it cheaper and more cost effective without being tacky.

One of the main buys is your wedding dress. We all have a dream somewhere deep inside us of what this is going to look like and sometimes we don't even know this till we start looking. After all the bride is supposed to look amazing at her wedding.

Whether you dreamed of a white dress and big flowing veil as a kid or only just started looking because you became engaged you will be amazed by what is out there.

I had dreamed of a medieval style dress with flowing sleeves and a little splash of colour. I spent many hours trawling through wedding magazines, books and the internet and d found a dress I loved amongst many. There was one that stood out to me.

I saved all the images I had found on the computer and in my own little wedding scrap book. I searched the second hand market and dress exchanges.

Eventually I thought that it best to try one on before committing to buy, as all dresses look different on the perfect model they advertise them on, than they do on you. You will have lumps and bumps on your body that your are not happy with even if you are practically perfect in everyway (But not many of us are like Mary Poppins).

So I went with all my ideas in my head and even took my wedding scrap book to an appointment at a local Bridal shop. I took both my mum and mother-in-law to be.

The lady at the shop was wonderful and I explained the tightness of the budget for my wedding dress. I expected her to be very put out by me saying straight off the bat that I could only afford a dress under 450. But she was amazing and told me not to look at the sale dress and not to look at dresses that were out of my price range. She was very good and I know that not all bridal shops will be this helpful. But I learnt that despite being nervous, you need to be assertive in this situation if you end up trying on a dress way out of your budget you will end up putting it on and falling in love with it, then being unable to afford it and nothing else will seem to match up to it no matter how hard you try.

I chose several dresses from the sale rack and at the time was still determined to try it and then come away and try and fid

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