New Wedding Dress App Uses 'Augmented Reality Technology' for Virtual Try-Ons

New wedding dress app promises to expedite the buying process.

ByABC News
September 4, 2014, 3:05 PM
A new app lets brides discover the best wedding dress styles suited for their body before ever stepping foot inside a bridal shop.
A new app lets brides discover the best wedding dress styles suited for their body before ever stepping foot inside a bridal shop.
Wedding Reality

— -- Planning a wedding -- and especially dress shopping -- should be some of the happiest times of a woman's life. But many brides report feeling overwhelmed by the planning, even breaking down into tears in dress salons.

But a just-released app promises to expedite the wedding-dress buying process and cut some of that stress.

“With thousands of wedding dress designs available today, dress shopping can be very overwhelming for a bride-to-be,” said Hillary Sica, executive director for the Wedding Dress Studio app. “We designed Wedding Dress Studio to alleviate some of that burden and help women visualize what silhouettes, styles, and even dress fabrics will potentially look the best on them.”

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The company behind the app said it uses "augmented reality technology to revolutionize how brides-to-be search, find, and buy wedding dresses." It's designed to be used before that first trip to the bridal salon so the bride to be goes in having a solid idea of what she does -- and does not -- want.

The dresses shown aren't actual dresses -- a person couldn't go into a store and ask for a specific dress they "tried on" but Sica told ABC News "they are simulated dresses that have similar real-life counterparts, but they are not images of actual dresses. However, we have created the dress images to be as close to the real-life counterpart as possible."

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Users start by uploading their full body photo, and adjusting shoulder and hip points in order to fit of the dress on their image. The app then lets users design their own dress by choosing the silhouette, neckline, fabric and embellishments. The app has a gallery of nearly 300 free gown designs. Once a user has finalized their "dream dress," the gown can be saved to the device and shared on social media.

Popular wedding planning site The Knot also has an app, but theirs allows uses to search through designer wedding gowns and bookmark the ones that appeal. It also tells the user what shops in their area carry the dress of interest. Brides.com has a "virtual dressing room" app that allows the user to try on designer dresses after uploading their own photo from camera roll or Facebook.