My husband and I are having our big, religious wedding in Mexico this August. I've ordered the perfect wedding dress, but now am worried about how to transport the dress. We will be taking a flight from Los Angeles, to Guadalajara, Mexico. Does anyone have any suggestions on transporting the dress? I really don't want to have to put the dress in a suitcase, it's a pretty big dress.

Anyone have any experience with this? I figured it's a good idea to post this question in the Latin America forum because some of you may have gone through this.

We will be traveling on Mexicana. Has anyone transported a dress thru them?

This is just a suggestion. Buy one of those enormous refrigerator-sized boxes and carefully package it inside. Then figure out what would be cheaper and/or more convenient: to ship it UPS/FED EX or to have Mexicana fly it.

Or check out this link: How Can I Ship a Bridal Gown?

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When I brought my wedding dress from Argentina, I checked it in as my carry-on luggage. It was a simple wedding dress, so I folded it on its cover on my carry on suitcase. But if yours needs a separate bag, you can always bring on board your purse plus the dress on its special bag/ cover/ box as your carry on, and you'll be sure that it won't get lost or dirty or anything like that during the flight and transfers.

Saludos,
Caro

I bought my wedding dress in the United States and brought it to Guatemala inside a suitcase, the dress was in the garment bag and it was folded carefully. It is all wrinkled now, but I will have it professionally ironed before I use it.

I would not recomend using a courier as it can be very expensive (especially if it is a big dress!) and it will also be subject to importation taxes.

Congrats on the ceremony!! I know when I got married in Jamaica, they allowed me to hang my wedding dress (it was in a dress bag from the bridal shop) up in the front with the long coats. My dress was a bit bulky and WAS NOT fitting in a suitcase. When I got to the resort, I just immediately took it out of the bag and let it hang...I did have to add some steam towards the bottom, but it wasn't too bad, and didn't take too long!! I would be leary of shipping it anywhere...having my dress lost in the postal system or held up somewhere where I can't see it just scares the begeezus out of me!! I'm waaay to anal for that!!

always have ur dress as a carry on never leave it as a checked bag.......when we had thought about getting married in india one of the places that i looked for a dress at told me that and also said that the dress can be boxed into a box that has a handle for carry on......u might want to ask about that.........

I wouldn't check or ship the dress. That is way too much of a gamble. I took my dress to Jamaica and had it in a long garment bag. I had heard that many planes have coat closets and would hang it for me. Unfortunately my airline AirJamaica did not. So the flight attendents rearranged an overhead case for me and I was able to lay my dress out on top of the luggage inside. It was completly fine when we landed. My dress didnt have a cathedral train or anything but it did have a train and lots of tulle which can get wrinkle. the wrinkles fell out 2 days later for the wedding.

One trick that really works for wrinkles is to hang your dress in the bathroom as you shower. The hot steam will steam your dress very well.

Thanks everyone for all your responses, they have been very helpful.

My Wife just went back to Guadalajara with her dress last Tuesday, 04/09 (we're also having our Big Church wedding in Guadalajara in July !! )

I was very back and fourth about how we should go about it and I thought about FedExing it to her (Cost was around $80.00), but that didn't solve a whole lot of problems, because they'd just pack it tight anyway. I didn't want her to carry it on either because she was travelling alone with our boy, a two-year-old, and had her hands FULL (Poor Girl!). So, in the end, we just gently packed it in a large suitcase and checked it.

It was a risk, but so long as its in its plastic and you carefully pack clothes around it we figured it would be OK and it was. She flew Continental from Denver and had to go through Houston, but she told me that it got there just fine and nothing got ruined at all on her brand new dress. She'll probably have to have it pressed before the wedding but that was expected anyway (and WAY cheaper than shipping it).

I think your other option would be to just carry-it-on in the plastic and hang it up in the closet on the plane, but things could get hairy if you do it that way (the closet might be too small to accomodate it, or the closet could be reserved for First-Class only).

(NOTE: if you DO decide to check the dress like we did, call ahead to Mexicana and check how many suitcases are allowed per passenger. A lot of airlines are moving to only ONE checked bag per customer now and will charge you for a second one, which could be a problem because I'm sure there's almost no way you could fit all your stuff into the bag with the dress. I'm sure you wouldn't want to anyway )

Best of Luck and Congratulations!