Book Review: It’s All About the Dress by Randy Fenoli

It’s June, the traditional month to get married. Here in Arizona, people do get married in June, but the weddings are usually smaller, budget friendly, and/or are held early in the morning or at night. The reason why weddings are different than weddings held in Spring, Fall, and Winter seasons is because of the hot temperatures. June is the hottest month of the year, so it’s not easy to have a wedding. Despite this, I still associate June as a month for weddings.

I own books about how to make formal dresses, including wedding dresses. Recently, while dusting my books, I remembered one of my favorite non sewing books in my collection. The book, It’s All About The Dress, is written by Randy Fenoli. Randy Fenoli is best known for staring in the TLC show Say Yes to the Dress. Randy, a fashion designer, wrote a book about everything a woman needs to know about buying a wedding dress.

The book was released in 2011 and I purchased it at that time brand new. Since then I tried to take care of it, even though I used it often as a base reference for fabrics, shapes of dresses, and other important things people will need to know not only for bridal dresses, but for formal dresses as well. Even though the book isn’t as widely available like it used to be, I still wanted to write a review about it in case anyone is curious about the book themselves.

The book is a hard cover book with a dust jacket. On the front of the dust jacket has Randy and one of the brides featured in the book…

The back of the dust cover has Randy, more brides featured in the book, and a plot blurb about the book…

 

 

 

Throughout the book, there are stories about real brides as well as photographs of them in their wedding dresses…

These section are tied in with the chapter they are located in, emphasizing what is discussed in the chapter in a real life way.

 

I really like this book. When I read this book for the first time, I really enjoyed reading about Randy’s point of view about wedding dress shopping and how to find the ideal wedding dress. The book not only goes into what to expect from the wedding dress appointment, styles of the dresses, and do’s and don’ts of wedding dress shopping, but also other things that are not always considered while shopping. Some of these topics include fabrics of the dresses and other design elements common to wedding dresses. I also love the addition of real bride’s stories about how they shopped for their own dresses. Each story is meant to emphasize something mentioned in the chapter the story is located in.

The book is meant to be a guide to shop for a wedding dress. Even though I believe the book did this, it can be confusing for some, especially if they are unfamiliar with sewing. The book talks about fabric, fit, and details in a way as seamstress, tailor, or a sewing hobbyist with intermediate knowledge of sewing and fabric can understand. If someone is unfamiliar with sewing or the construction of clothing, it will be harder for them to understand why Randy would explain about certain types of fabric and how the effect the way the dress looks, feels, and moves. As someone who sewed for many years, especially formal dresses, this does not effect the book for me. In fact, this made me love the book even more! Despite this, I know that not everyone will understand and may become intimidated about wedding dress shopping when reading the book.

I really recommend this book to anyone looking for a book about wedding dresses with a focus on sewing and fashion design. I also recommend this book to any fans of Say Yes to the Dress New York.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!