The Week Before the Sale:

Pick a team...people whose taste you trust and are willing to get in there and do shopping battle for you:

Hold a pre-sale meeting with your team:

• Come up with a team uniform: matching hats, t-shirts, headbands, carry whistles-anything that would make it easier to find each other in the crowd.

• Assign jobs to team members...someone to gather, someone to trade, someone to help you in and out of the wedding dresses, someone to guard your inventory from prowlers.

• Tear out pages from bridal magazines or print styles from online wedding gown sites to show your team what you’re looking for.

• Pick place to rendezvous in the store.

The Morning of the Sale:

Dress code: Wear a sports bra and shorts or a bathing suit so you can try on dresses anywhere in the store; DO NOT WEAR FLIP FLOPS if you plan to participate in the “rush to the racks” (we’ve seen a couple of nasty tumbles).

Leave your handbag at home—you’ll need both hands for this.

Please, NO MAKEUP. You wouldn’t want to see the dress of your dreams only to find it smeared with lipstick. CLEAN HANDS are appreciated.

No food or drinks inside the store; get rid of trash before the doors open in the receptacles provided

Best Time to Arrive:

The doors open at 8 a.m. Brides and their teams who have been in line the longest will get to the racks first. In fact, it’s possible that the racks will be bare by the time you get into the store. DON’T DESPAIR! The wedding dresses are not all gone. You’ll see brides trading or putting bridal dresses back on the racks almost immediately. Use the first hour to look for brides who are trying on bridal gowns you like. Then, be there to grab or trade for her “rejects.”

INSIDER TIP: If you’re not up to the chaos of store opening, arrive late morning or anytime up to store closing. Wedding dresses will be back on the racks and the atmosphere will be much calmer. REMEMBER, this sale looks a lot more competitive than it really is—most of the hundreds of people you see in the rush to the racks are helpers, not buyers. Each team ends up with just one bridal dress. (Alright, sometimes two, but that’s rare). There are still plenty of wedding dresses to choose from. In fact, last year over 90 percent of the brides who came to this sale found their dream bridal gown.