Obviously we love to encourage buyers to buy wedding dresses from us, Bridepower, whether you decide to come to Boston or whether you buy your wedding dress from us online. Buying a wedding dress online is a much different experience than buying one in person because there are things you need to check out that have to do with more than just the wedding dress.

For instance, you need to check to see how many types of wedding dresses an online retailer has. Often you’ll visit online sites that have images of some beautiful wedding dresses, only to discover that they don’t sell those dresses. Any site that does that is trying to deceive you, which probably puts their credibility in question.

Something else to check is whether they offer both designer and discount wedding gowns. Every designer might not be as famous as Vera Wang, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some good designers that don’t make some wonderful wedding gowns.

Now we leave the dresses themselves for some other things. You need to make sure that your online retailer accepts credit cards. This offers you some kind of protection if there ends up being something wrong with your wedding dress, or if you never get it from an unscrupulous dealer.

You need to look for some kind of guarantee or warranty policy on the site. It should be easy to find, and if it’s not, you might want to think twice before buying from that site. It’s possible that you won’t find it, in which case they’re hiding it, as every site will be smart enough to have some kind of policy that they can whip out at a moment’s notice in case a lawsuit ensues.

You also need to look to see what other types of fees there might be. For instance, we charge a $50 fee if you want us to try to locate a specific type of wedding dress for you, but if we can’t find it we’ll refund your money. Some sites will charge you for it without a refund policy, and then you’re not really sure if they actually tried to find it or not.

And finally, you need to know how long it will take you to get your wedding gown in the mail, or however it’s shipped. Our site promises 3 to 5 weeks, though we try to get them out sooner if possible. At the very least you want to get your wedding gown at least 2 months before your wedding so if it needs alterations, you’ll have plenty of time to have the work done, and if there are problems you have enough time to send the dress back and either ask for a replacement or get your money back.