I didn't have too much trouble luckily. My mom and I went out one day and started at Davids where I tried on about 10 dresses (only 3 were actual possibilities, the others were just me trying on types/silhouettes that I didn't think I wanted, but wanted to make sure I didn't like them). Personally, I didn't think the quality of those dresses was very nice, and for every dress I tried on there was at least one aspect that I really didn't like.

After that we went to Anderson's and I tried on 4 dresses. There were two that I liked quite a bit. We marked those two down and then a couple weeks later I tried them both on again and made my choice.

I went into the whole thing without too many expectations and not much of a picture in my head of what I wanted, so I was fairly easy to please.

As far as cost goes, the really low-priced dresses didn't impress me at all as far as quality goes - both in looks and feel of the material. The dress I found wasn't too expensive, but was a bit above what I wanted to spend. I was going to give in and pay for it, but luckily my Mom said she'd pay for it.

Anchorage really doesn't have very many bridal stores, so I didn't have many options (and I wasn't willing to fly out of AK just to look for a dress). Because of that I don't really have much advice as far as shopping around or trying to find a great deal.

Maybe you could try ebay (not the most sentimental way to find your dream dress but could save lots of money). If you already know one or two dresses you want you could search for them on ebay and probably find a decent price... Or find out when the new season of wedding dresses comes out, and maybe stores will have a sale to clear out some of the previous season's inventory.