Visit Our

san diego bridal shop

Our dresses are consciously designed and produced by designers we know and trust in New York, Paris, Auckland, & London. Whether modern, nostalgic, elegantly sexy, barefoot at the beach, or classically cool, our bridal stylists have only you, your style, and your wedding day in mind when thoughtfully pulling from our collection of bridal gowns. We handpick dresses that feel fresh and original, yet always timeless. Price range begins at $2500.

book your appointment

Our San Diego bridal shop will provide you with a personalized, unique, and unforgettable shopping experience. We curate wedding gowns with an unprecedented amount of refinement and style for modern classic, minimal, or bold, statement making brides. Our stylists will greet you and your loved ones (or solo) at our boutique. We’ll listen to your vision and style and pull a carefully selected set of dresses chosen just for you!

We believe wedding dress shopping should be one of your favorite parts of wedding planning. And we believe it can, and should, be easy!

San Diego Designers

“From the moment I found my dress and The Dress Theory, I couldn’t wait for my husband to see me in it.  I’ve never felt more timeless, more beautiful, in my entire life.  Thank you.”

Gaby DeAscentis

FAQs

San Diego’s original & best bridal shop for independent, unique, fashion forward, elevated and effortless bridal fashion with modern nostalgia and timeless elegance.

The Dress Theory Bridal Shop in San Diego, California, is located in the charming Mission Hills neighborhood. Our bridal shop showroom features designer made-to-order wedding dresses, designer reception or rehearsal dresses, designer sample sale/”off-the-rack” dresses, and our accessory and veil collection. Find wedding dresses that match your style with our extensive selection of modern classic, edgy, statement, effortless, elegant, sexy and unique wedding dresses. We first opened in San Diego in 2014 by two sisters that went to UCSD and lived in San Diego after. In fact, Summer still lives in the Mission Hills neighborhood!

Our selection of designer bridal gowns features a carefully curated assortment of sought-after domestic and international bridal brands, including Sarah Seven, Danielle Frankel, Sept Bride, Flora Bride, Liz Martinez, Lela Rose, Dana Harel, Rue de Seine, Theia, Rime Arodaky, A La Robe, Alexandra Grecco, Scout Bridal, Before by Sarah Seven, A.B. Ellie, and more. We offer unique and unforgettable wedding dresses in a variety of styles with more modern and classic bridal designs. We specialize in modern, minimal, detailed, beaded, bohemian, western, black-tie, elopement, romantic, sexy styles that always have something that makes our brands stand out with a lasting, stunning impact. Even our wildcard gowns that your friends and family have never seen before still have a timeless appeal for your wedding photos.

The Dress Theory has provided exceptional customer service and quality wedding dresses since 2012. Family-owned and operated, The Dress Theory has built its legacy as one of the Best Bridal Shops in Southern California and the nation on superior style, trust and value. Enjoy The Dress Theory Difference when you purchase your dream fashion-forward wedding dress at our California Bridal Shop.

Bridal DESIGNERS AVAILABLE IN San Diego

Sarah Seven
Bride by Sarah Seven
Rue de Seine
Danielle Frankel
Flora Bride
Liz Martinez
Dana Harel
Rime Arodaky
Sept Bride
Alexandra Grecco
Scout Bridal
Theia
Lela Rose
A La Robe
Dany Tabet
Before by Sarah Seven
& more

veil and accessory DESIGNERS AVAILABLE IN San Diego

Sara Gabriel
A.B. Ellie
Twigs & Honey
Sarah Seven
Danielle Frankel
Alexandra Grecco
Rue de Seine

Bridal, rehearsal, & reception dresses AVAILABLE IN San diego

The Dress Theory’s Exclusive

Our California and hometown bridal shop, The Dress Theory San Diego, will provide you with a unique shopping experience with white-glove customer service, a curated, yet rich selection of designer wedding dresses for ceremony or reception, and designer bridal accessories and veils. We feel honored that we are a part of one of the most special occasion as you celebrate and commemorate this important moment of your life. We believe how you feel on your wedding day and during wedding dress shopping experience should be one of the best memories and experiences in life.

Each of our designers meets our elevated standards and conscious, ethical business practices. Each bridal designer is hand-selected to become part of our Dress Theory family of designers and brands. We are the only bridal shop and authentic retailer in our region for our designers to get an authentic, brand new, made to order wedding dress. We also provide our continued customer service, advice, and assistance when you purchase one of our dresses through alterations, emails, bridal styling or any other way we can assist you. Our wedding dresses, bridal gowns, bridal pantsuits, and reception dresses are available in modern, timeless, edgy, and classic designs featuring silk satin, silk crepe, lace, embroider, floral appliqué, corsets, tulle, chiffon, colorful fabrics, beading, and more. Choose from our selection of bridal gowns, veils, accessories, and bridal sets, or customize your own ring with our designers that offer customized dress design services.

We look forward to assisting you when you stop by our Mission Hills bridal boutique location. Whether you’re searching for the perfect wedding dress to complete your Pinterest moldboard vision and aesthetic, find the dress you fell in love with on instagram or tin took, or need our bridal stylists to help you understand and embrace your personal bridal style, our team is here to help. Visit our California bridal shop today and experience The Dress Theory Difference with the best bridal boutique in San Diego. We are locally owned and operated so shopping with us is truly supporting a small, independent, female owned and led business that keeps your money, support, energy, and uniqueness in our incredible city.

The Dress Theory location in San Diego, California also serves as a bridal shop for the surrounding areas of Oceanside, Del Mar, Temecula, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange County, Ocean Beach, Anaheim, Fullerton, Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Carlsbad, Laguna Beach, Escondido, Encinitas, San Marcos, Chula Vista, Poway, Long Beach, Irvine, Pasadena, Culver City, Santa Monica, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, San Luis Obispo, Corona, and Orange. As a bridal gown fitting and dress shopping experience is a core memory, and something to be embraced, celebrated, and cherished, we regularly welcome and serve our brides that travel in from our neighboring states, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. We love when brides come to see us from Las Vegas, Reno, Henderson, Phoenix, Gilbert, Sedona, Cedar City, St George, and Tuscan. We are experienced and prepared to work with out-of-town brides and destination weddings.

  • Yes, and we’d love to help you get scheduled over the phone if needed. Otherwise we recommend booking online so you can see all available appointments at once for our San Diego bridal showroom. Appointments allow us to give each bride personalized attention in a relaxed, welcoming, private environment.

  • Approximately $2500-$10,000 with a few above and below that range. If you are looking to stay under $2500, our designers Scout Bridal and Theia might be for you if you like the style of their gowns. Or a sample, off-the-rack dress could be a discounted option too! Most brides put down 50% deposit when they purchase their made-to-order dress and pay balance later. You can choose to pay in full or ask for a flexible payment plan. We’ve been around over a decade and we are always happy to do a payment plan, without any interest or extra charges, whenever it makes sense for a bride.

    Please note alterations are an additional cost and done off-site at a specialist. This can range in price from $400-$900 for standard bridal tailoring, or more if you are customizing, changing, or dramatically altering a wedding dress.

  • We purchase our samples in a range of sizes whenever possible. We usually only have one size of each dress, with a few exceptions. Sizes are using a 6, 8, 10, 12, or 14. The sizing is sometimes street sizing and sometimes bridal sizing. Just like regular clothing, each designer has their own sizing chart. Ultimately, dresses will be too big or too small during their first fitting appointment for most of our clients. It’s not ideal, but we are trained and experienced in the industry process. Some of our designers do customized sizing, this can be included or an extra charge depending on the designer. Many of our brides order split sizing which is offered for brides falling into more than one size on the size chart and can be beneficial for certain cases. Most dresses can be ordered in a size 00-18 approximately. Custom or extended hollow-to-hem dresses can be ordered for petite or tall bridal clients.

    If you are concerned, curious, anxious or feeling ANYTHING except prepared and excited to go dress shopping, especially for sizing reason, please call one of our stylists directly. We love you and want all our brides to feel prepared, welcome, as comfortable as possible. We can walk you through the process, talk about options, and schedule a time and room that is most private, anything that we can possibly do to help and also manage expectations. We know trying on sample wedding dresses isn’t a perfect system or process for brides that feel the sizing does not work well for them due to height, sizing, confidence, skin conditions, medical and health issues, or whatever else you’re working with. We also have years of experience sizing pregnant brides for pregnancy and maternity friendly brides and pre and postnatal body changes and fluctuations.

    If you are concerned about fluctuating in size after wedding dress shopping and before your wedding day, don’t worry! Not many people stay the same measurements year round, especially brides due to stress and schedule changes. We’ve worked with many brides postpartum, undergoing medical treatments, choosing or needing plastic or any type of surgery, changing their eating or activity habits, feeling stressed by a variety of pressures, and many more sitiuations. We are sensitive, understanding, and experienced with all of these scenarios. In fact they are pretty normal and just a regular day at work to us! If you think you are the only bride on a weight loss journey, feeling different with stress of wedding planning some feel, or building muscle in new places from a new workout regimen, you are not alone! Whatever the concern or change is, please communicate directly with us, even if it comes up after purchasing. We will move any mountains for you that we can, and guide you to the best options and choices with our experience and expertise. We promise you, we’ve most likely heard it before! You can’t surprise or shock us, and we honestly want to help all of our brides so they feel ready to go and beautiful on their wedding day!

    We have limited samples in store in a 16, 18, or 20, but we are not a plus-size speciality store at this time. We are always trying to improve our size options as best as we can as a small, local business. We know wedding dress shopping is not as equitable and accessible as it could be. We want to help brides try on a variety of samples and visualize the fit in the perfect size to the best of our ability and the bride’s personal comfort level. We’ve worked with brides that fine and successful with the process, and we’ve talked with brides who are ultimately more comfortable with a shop that specializes in sizing that works best for them. We support you and can talk with you to help you make that decision, whatever it is that is best for you!

    Some of our designers size charts go from 0-22/24, and some can do custom measurements for sizing beyond 24. Our samples are generally only one size, and we do have some samples in 16 and 18. The bulk of our samples are size 6-14. We will assist you in the process no matter the number, if the bride is comfortable and open to working together on bringing their bridal style vision to life to the very best of our ability.

  • Some brides shop solo, some come with a crowd. We think less is more in this scenario, but ultimately we try to be as flexible as we possibly can to make sure it’s the day YOU have been dreaming of. We think it’s usually best with 1-4 guests, but we see brides have a great time solo or with bigger parties. We also see brides struggle either way with group emotions, involvement or lack-of, opinions, and overwhelm. We are here to support you and do our very best to make sure the focus is on you and the energy is positive, we are on your side. However, we can’t always control every situation so we ultimately think it’s best that you carefully consider who joins you for the process and make sure you protect yourself and feel prepared to let anyone else’s opinions or behavior not impact this special day of shopping. Ultimately we think less is more, bring who you need to feel like you can make a decision if you feel you need anyone there, and use your best discretion. Don’t feel bad if you can’t invite everyone in your family or bridal party, there are other ways to involve them in the process like accessory appointments or your dress pick-up appointment.

    If you want to bring a larger group, please call us in advance so we can go through options and do our best to comfortably accommodate the group, and prepare the rest of the shop. Again, we just want all our brides to be happy and have a great experience wedding dress shopping. We can’t tell you what that number looks like specifically for you, but generally we do think 2-3 is the magic number… 2-3 bridal shops (or less) and 2-3 guests (or less) based on our decade plus years of industry experience.

  • It’s best to email or call us about specific styles you want/need to try as samples can be sold off the rack occasionally, or dresses might be discontinued, out for dry cleaning, or a photo shoot. If we know, we can do our best to accommodate! If we don’t have the dress, we can often arrange a loan from our other locations or the designer. There may be a shipping fee needed for a loan. We can also book you for a trunk show appointment for that specific designer if we have one coming up, usually there is a discount and an extended collection. You would not need to pay a loan fee for a dress traveling in for a trunk show.

    If there are several dresses or styles you are interested in, or just like the style of, bring in screenshots, photos, moodboards, or whatever you have please. We will use that info to find you your dream dress! But if there is a specific dress you need to try, please, please call or email us first! We don’t want you to be disappointed if we can prepare in advance and with notice.

  • Our San Diego bridal boutique is located at 1427 West Lewis Street in the Mission Hills neighborhood. We are located next to so many incredible local businesses for drinks, flowers, wine, shopping, jewelry, coffee, pastries, or light bites.

    We have free parking directly in front of the boutique, some is time and some spots are not. If you cannot find parking (not usually an issue), or can’t find us… please give us a call. The surrounding neighborhood has parking options too. Look for charming light blue green craftsman filled with white dresses in the big porch window, that’s us!

STORE MANAGER

Rhiannon Marquis
sandiego@thedresstheory.com

Bridal Stylists/
General inquiries

Rhiannon
Megan
Analy
Kenya

sandiego@thedresstheory.com

STORE owner/
operator

Summer & Camille
hello@thedresstheory.com

Buying inquiries

Ali Gray & Gianna Baur
sales@thedresstheory.com

Contact info

The Dress Theory San Diego
1427 West Lewis St
(619)876-5018
sandiego@thedresstheory.com

Socials

The Dress Theory Instagram
The Dress Theory SD Instagram
TikTok
Pinterest