BEING THERE:Fussy or formal? A-line or clingy? Veil or no veil? One of the biggest problems for a bride-to-be is finding the perfect wedding dress, but first she has to find the perfect wedding-dress shop, writes RÓISÍN INGLE.

WHEN SHE FINDS "the one", something shifts in the atmosphere at White Orchid, a wedding dress shop in Swords, Co Dublin. Even when you're a stranger watching from the sidelines. Even when you're bemused by lengthy debates about drop waists and diamante. There's a moment of magic, even then.

The beautiful girl with the creamy skin, blue eyes and blonde hair is looking at herself in a full-length mirror. The shop goes quiet. Perhaps she's thinking of her boyfriend, who surprised her with a proposal on Croagh Patrick when she thought they were just going for a picnic. She stares at herself in the dress with a faraway expression on her face. You'd love to climb inside her head to see exactly what she sees.

The dress sparkles as Susan turns to look at her family. They were all here earlier in the day, when she tried on this dress for the third time. Then, they went to Drogheda, Co Louth to visit another quite different, more simple dress, which has been competing for her affections. "I'm glad I came back," Susan says softly.

"This," she says, "is the one."

If there was champagne, it would be popped. Instead, there are gasps and wide smiles. Her eyes are shining now, her cheeks and neck flushed a deep pink. This is the one.

It doesn't always happen this way. Friends Alex Reilly and Anne Kinsella, owners of White Orchid and self-confessed "suckers for weddings", help manage the expectations of brides-to-be. Some arrive expecting a choir of angels to start singing when they slip on the dress. That's not the way it works, explains Anne.

"It just doesn't happen," she says. "The truth is, it's a process of trying on lots of dresses, seeing what shape works best for you, finding out whether you want a simple dress or the glamour factor; plain or blinging." So no celestial intervention, but the friends have found that trying on wedding dresses can be the moment when it all becomes real.

"When they come in the first time, you'll hear them in the changing room," says Anne, who got married in 2006, as did Alex. "They'll be trying on the first dress and just giggling away to themselves. I will call in to them and say 'did you just realise you are getting married or something?' They will say 'yes', giggling. The fact that they are getting married will have suddenly hit them."

A wedding dress will often be the most expensive piece of clothing their clients will ever wear. With all the fittings and alterations, Anne says it's the closest many women will ever come to purchasing a couture item. So it's an important purchase - "you have to love every bit of it," says Anne - but the perfect wedding dress is about more than just looking good.

"I found it was a representation of my relationship," says Alex. "You walk up the aisle and you have found this beautiful dress and it represents your love for each other. It's a symbol of that."

"And it's also about being different," says Anne. "You don't want to be wearing something similar to what your friend got married in. Your personality comes out in the dress, you want to express your individuality."

Individuality can be difficult to maintain, especially when, like most White Orchid clients, you are partaking in the same white- dress, church, hotel-reception, bouquet-tossing package that the booming wedding industry suggests is as commonplace now as it ever was. Alex and Anne say originality is maintained in the quirkiness of the planning, in details such as "wedding favours". For her wedding, Anne persuaded cosmetic companies to part with sample-sized products, which she passed on to guests in exclusive goody bags.

For some, though, it's more straightforward and not so much an expression of their personality as an expression of a long-held fantasy. For some, the fairytale dress and veil are nothing short of a girlhood dream come true.

DANIELLE GRANGE IS A pretty 23-year-old hairdresser who lives in Finglas and has dreamed of her wedding day for most of her life. She is "a girly girl" who makes no bones about wanting "the whole princess thing. I was obsessed with the Disney movies as a child and I still have them all. Watching my cousins and aunties getting married, I went to bed dreaming of sparkles and tiaras and the kind of wedding I would have."

Danielle was just 18 when she became pregnant with Sean, a chatty almost-four-year-old, who plays with a Transformer toy while his mother slips into another glamorous gown. "You look like a princess, Mammy," he tels her, without anyone having to tell him that it's exactly the right thing to say. Danielle beams.

She was five months into the pregnancy before she and her boyfriend, Colin, told their families. "We were just afraid of what they'd say but they were great," she says. Danielle and Colin's parents both split up when they were young, but this hasn't done anything to turn them against marriage. "It's made us stronger as a couple," she says. "We've talked about it a lot. Just because they did it doesn't mean we will; we are going to have more children and stay together."

Both Danielle's mother and father have since remarried, and she was a bridesmaid each time. Her mother's daughters with her new partner will be her bridesmaids when she gets married next July. "My younger sisters are both goths, so there is probably going to be killings over the dresses," she smiles.

Colin proposed to her over breakfast in bed and he would have been happy to just go away to get married. "I couldn't have done that," says Danielle. "I want all my family and friends there. I want the occasion. It's that thing of being the centre of attention, when you are the most important person for at least one day. There'll be fairy lights all around the place, it's going to be like a princess ball."

Her enthusiasm is so infectious that you feel like angling for an invitation. She speaks as though on this one day she will be starring in her very own movie. We chat about 27 Dresses, a film about a woman who has been a bridesmaid 27 times but longs for her own wedding. Danielle has been a bridesmaid three times - "I absolutely loved it" - and now it's her turn. She wants her dress to be "blinging, but not too blinging". She wants it to sparkle and stand out in the right places. The dress will be a nod to the girl who was happily playing with Barbies at age 12 and a tribute to the woman, the mother she has become.

"This is how it works," Anne tells Deirdre Creevy, a customer for whom the process of choosing in another shop was so stressful that on her last outing she got a headache and had to go home. "I won't come in and dress you, if you need a hand just ask. Now, what will we start with?"

It's like a game of dress-up, only for grown-ups. Does Deirdre want fussy or plain? A-line or clingy? Veil or no veil? "We are veil-pushers here," smiles Alex, smoothing down a long net creation. Deirdre wants something simple and elegant in which to walk down the aisle. "Glide," corrects Alex. "Brides don't walk, they glide." Deirdre's two friends sit, ready with opinions. Some dresses are declared "too bridey", "too ruffly", "too lumpy" or "too frumpy".

A gorgeous off-white gown with lace at the straps is given the thumbs-up, but Deirdre hasn't made up her mind. It's got to be simple, both the dress and the wedding. "I've been to weddings where I've thought, 'no, I wouldn't like this'. The big huge fuss and 250 people there, it's too much for me," she says. "Whenever I thought about my wedding, I always wanted something simple and informal." And yes, the white dress is important. "I suppose you only do it once and it's part of the tradition."

Deirdre and her fiancé were thinking of going away to get married but, "I thought that would be lonely," she says. Her late father got married to her mother in Cyprus. "He always said he'd build a ladder outside the bathroom window so I could elope," she remembers with a laugh.

WHATEVER YOU THINK about 21st-century Irish woman legging it, sorry gliding, down the aisle all dressed in white or ivory or champagne or oyster, the majority of couples are still choosing the traditional route.

What is called the "Cinderella syndrome" is alive and well, and sometimes it even comes knocking on the doors of women who thought they would never succumb. Mother-of-two Chloe McDonnell is a stunning thirtysomething - long brown hair, gorgeous figure - who never planned to get married. "It was definitely not something I dreamed about growing up," she says.

When she told friends that she and her partner, artist Tom Byrne, were getting hitched, they were surprised. "Tom and I are not the conformist types. We bought the house and we had children and we've been together for nearly eight years. Our friends didn't think they would see the day."

She supposes there is an element of social conformity to their decision and that for practical legal reasons marriage makes sense, but there's more to it than that. "We have been through a lot together and we want to celebrate the fact that we are still together; it's nice for our children too," she says.

As for the dress, she was convinced she would go for a gothic or Celtic style in a nod to her "hippy" past. But when she tried on those kinds of dresses, they didn't represent who she is now. So, in White Orchid, she stands in a sophisticated, fishtailed dress and while she is a hippy at heart, she knows "this is the one".

Well, it's the one she has chosen, anyway. "I don't really buy into that 'one dress' thing," she laughs. "I am still thinking, 'should I have gone for a different one?', but I really love it so I will stick with my choice." She chose a white shade because "when in your life do you get the chance to wear white? It's not like the dress is virginal or anything, it's quite a sexy dress."

While she's the antithesis of a bridezilla - there are a modest 70 people coming to the wedding and the blessing will be a simple, humanist ceremony - Chloe has developed a minor addiction to wedding magazines.

"I think you do get a bit obsessed," she says. "Even some of my friends who would never have been interested in this kind of thing are getting excited. I've loved choosing my dress. When else do you get a chance to walk into a shop, have the place to yourself and have people stand around and tell you that you look fabulous?" Not very often, it has to be said. "It has been great for my self-esteem."

beingthere@irish-times.ie