All the advice and logistics you need to know when flying with a wedding dress for a destination wedding from my experience in 2020!
Getting on a flight…with a huge wedding dress…during a pandemic. What is my life? This is one of those things where it’s not a big deal, until you have to actually do it. I had just picked up my gorgeous wedding gown from Kleinfeld Bridal. They put it in the back of Mike’s truck and I didn’t realize how big the dress in the garment bag was actually until this moment! After some research and speaking to multiple airlines, here are some tips to make your life a little easier when traveling & flying with a wedding dress!
Tips & Tricks
- Call or message your airline to find out their guidelines. We flew Delta operated by AirFrance so we spoke to representatives from both and got the same answer. AirFrance rules really are the only ones that matter since it’s their plane and their flight crew. We had the representative add a note to our flight reservation that we will be flying with a wedding dress, just to give a heads up to the check-in desk when we checked in. They were all so incredibly kind to me and even upgraded us to priority boarding. You could tell all of the women at the AirFrance desk in JFK were excited for us!
- The wedding dress is your carry-on, whether its in a garment bag or inside a carry-on suitcase. They are very strict about this rule and it must either fit in the overhead bin, or if you are lucky, they can put the dress in a closet on the plane. My circumstance was a little different because our flight was only 40% full during this ongoing pandemic, so getting closet space was very easy. I did, however, wonder why I couldn’t just buckle my dress into one of the many empty seats next to us, but the closet was perfectly fine. It really all depends on the flight crew and every case varies.
- Make your personal item work smarter, not harder. I had a small duffle as my personal item with the approved dimensions instead of a purse because I needed for it to hold as much Wedding day accessories as possible: my headpiece, my jewelry, and my shoes being the most important. And I also needed the space for my travel documents, wallet, etc.
- NEVER EVER PUT YOUR WEDDING DRESS IN YOUR CHECKED LUGGAGE. It is just something you don’t want to risk getting lost or damaged so always keep it in your sight and stored safely on the flight.
- If you are also packing for your honeymoon, in addition to the wedding, get Premium Economy seats. What helped us pack for a wedding and being abroad for a month was the fact that we could each have 2 checked bags, in addition to a carry-on and a personal item. The premium seats are also much better and this is your wedding/honeymoon- you deserve to fly a little more lavishly while also not blowing your hard-earned money. The premium seats were 100-200 dollars more and absolutely worth it in our opinion. Another pro about them is that the section was mostly empty for our flights. Only 4-5 people were in our section including us, while in regular economy there were a lot more people, families, and the majority of the flight was in economy. During this pandemic, having seats away from people was very important to us.
- Tie-up your dress with straps for easy carrying. I will show a photo below of the set up that we rigged up. We basically made suspenders for my dress! All we did was buy a couple heavy-duty straps from the hardware store that we could roll up the bottom of the dress and secure that to the top of the hanger. This made it much easier for me to carry by-myself without it dragging on the dirty airport floor or being a two-person job. When I went through TSA, they wanted my dress to go in the conveyor belt…but it didn’t fit. So, I had to remove the straps and lay the dress flat. It was not a big deal and I had some help putting the straps back on after TSA. The agent was really helpful and told me I can use their desk to roll the dress back to where we had it.
- Buy a Travel Steamer. My dress was made of a material that did not wrinkle much, plus the acid-free tissue paper I wrapped the dress in helped. But whatever creases I had, this steamer I bought off Amazon worked perfectly for steaming the crease from the train. It comes in handy on the honeymoon too! Look for a steamer that is dual voltage for overseas use (so you won’t need an converter, only a adapter like for your cell phone).
- Repeat the Process coming home, or better yet, Have a guest take the dress home. My mother flew home the day after the wedding. We made our way to the TGV train to begin our honeymoon. She only had 1 checked bag, which was basically empty since she only came for a week. So, we put my wedding dress in that huge bag- At that point, extra wrinkles doesn’t matter! She had the rest of her belongings in her carry-on, which she also checked in because she got Premium Economy seats for comfort and social distance reasons. She was able to bring the dress to my MIL for it to be dry cleaned ASAP (even though it was already pretty spotless, surprisingly). That took the dress off my hands for the rest of the trip! I packed an empty duffle bag in my checked luggage to use as my future carry-on for the return flight home; and I am glad I did! It was perfect for extra clothes and laundry to save room for our French souvenirs in our luggage.
- If you haven’t already, check out Planning a Destination Wedding! to get the full outline of more blog posts to come!
