Ok, so I will be buying my dress from the bay probably or somewhere like that (after much research) as my dress budget is tiny (£100) but I just can't decide on the colour. I had it in my head that I wanted to wear white, because I do want it white, not off white or cream but I went to a bridal shop today, just to get some ideas on style etc and the assistant told me that all 8 dresses I tried on were in fact Ivory. Now I didn't really feel as though any of them were too ivory, iykwim but thats my concern, that if I order a ivory one from a china seller that I'll just keep seeing off white and regret not getting the white. There was one dress in particular today that I tried on that looked stark white to me but the assistant insisted that it was in fact ivory, which just confuses me because it just demonstrated that one persons idea of ivory is very different to anothers. So I left the shop feeling that I should just order ivory anyway but I had a nagging voice in my head telling me its the wrong decision. I then looked at some photos of a couple of my friends wedding days, both of them wore ivory and whilst they both looked beautiful I just kept thinking 'but its not white enough', especially if they were stood next to some white linen. Now thats the thing, we will be having lots of white drapes etc and I don't want the drapes to make me look like I'm in off white, so it seems obvious that I need to be in white too but my concern there is that I am quite pale skinned, in fact so pale that people often remark on it and apparently pale skin looks better with ivory! So what I'm wanting to know is for those of you who bought a china copy, did you choose white or ivory and were you happy with your decision or did you regret it?

if you really want a really bright white dress then order white. some bridal shops have lots of lights in the shop which may make your dress look whiter than it is. personally i prefer the ivory dresses but if thats what you like then go for it x

mines a china dress and its white :) i wanted white not that i have anything against ivory but the same as you i am having white linen and dont want to look like my dress has discoloured if im photographed near it (im not normally vain but for this one day i absolutely am!) but maybe pop back into the shop and ask her to show you a white dress against ivory an see what you think :)

Have you looked into buying a preloved dress or a sample dress? I've seen some dress shops offer dresses starting at £99. I've also seen high street shops that sell wedding dresses for under £100 during the sales - B*H*S, M0ns00n, T*K*max, and Debs. There are also some charity shops that sell sample dresses and preloved - a quick G00gle search will bring them up.
Since your budget is so tight you won't have anything spare if your china dress isn't what you expected.

Thank you Laura, I will ask them if they'll send me a sample, so fingers crossed they'll be as accommodating as your seller.

sarah - I have seen the dress I want and its not in BHS or debenams lol My dream dress costs £2500 brand new, I haven't been able to find it on preloved, so my choices are either I wear a dress I'm not happy with (the dresses in the shops you mentioned are too plain and basic for my taste) or I take my chances with a china dress. I don't need it to be an exact replica of the original, I just want it to be close and I've not seen anything else in my price range which comes close :)

thats what i was trying to say too. the dresses can be made really badly!! so research is important plus check what people have said about them. i had a guarantee sent through ebay by the company to say that if i wasnt happy with the dress that it could be returned at their cost and refunded and paypal will uphold it if you keep the message to prove it. but i was lucky i definitely didnt need it BUT as i said as much as i love my dress i fully accept it is a copy and certain parts are different rather than tiny beads on my dress it has beeds with tiny sequins that reflect the light to make it look like expensive beads so if you are prepared to accept that and d your research then you should be fine , give yourself plenty of time though order sooner rather than later so if something goes wrong you have time to sort it. theres no way in the world i could afford the real dresses not even in sales the money saved has meant other things could be done. remember these dresses are not the real thing but if done properly you can get the same affect for a fraction of the cost. the only extra i got to go with mine is a good corset £30 just because although the dress is boned they arent as sturdy as my wobbly body would like (a slim bride would not need it!) . and i want to know too what is that dream dress? you may find one being sold second hand thats real!

chances are the one you like on the bay the picture has been taken from naomi neoh thats where they are naughty the pictures on ebay are hardly ever the actual picture of the dress you will receive that was the other thing that i asked for a picture of the dress they were posting in context i.e (and i dont mean this to sound racist) on a actual mannequin or chinese person . if you have chosen a good company they will do it to get the sale hun . i just googled naomi she does some beautiful dresses!