Ms Jamie Sim is preparing for her wedding in September by heading to Hong Kong next month and Bangkok the month after.

The 28-year-old account manager will be looking for wedding favours and bridesmaids' dresses in Hong Kong, where there are dedicated wedding streets, malls and wholesale markets, and for decorative items in Bangkok's street markets.

"I'm going for the added variety, as shops in Singapore tend to offer pretty cookie-cutter items.

"It's also cheaper to buy wholesale in Hong Kong and Bangkok, and the trip can double as a holiday," says Ms Sim, who will be going with her maid of honour to Hong Kong for five days, and with her fiance to Bangkok over a weekend.

Brides-to-be are flocking abroad to do their wedding shopping, citing cost and variety as the key reasons.

Ms Sim, for instance, estimates she will save $200 on wedding favours and around $100 on bridesmaids' dresses. Ms Michele Ng also saved by purchasing her wedding gown and other items for her wedding on a street in Guangzhou known colloquially as Jiang Nan Da Dao or Wedding Gown Street.

The 28-year-old entrepreneur says she and a friend spent a day looking through all the shops on the roughly 2km-long street.

The tulle wedding gown that she settled on cost her $300. She estimates that she saved anywhere between $500 and a few thousand dollars compared to what it might have cost in Singapore.

"I know a lot of people who ordered gowns from China online, so I figured I might as well buy a dress there since I was actually there and could see the dresses in person," she says.

"I'm going to wear it for only one day, and most people will see it only from afar, so it was not that important to me to spend so much on it."

She also bought 20 paper lanterns for wedding decorations, as well as teapots and teacups for her tea ceremony.

Her mother bought a cheongsam to wear to the wedding on the same street on a separate visit. Ms Ng got her own cheongsam tailor-made in Shenzhen, a two-hour train ride from Guangzhou.

Ms Evelyn Tay, 26, also visited Guangzhou's Wedding Gown Street two years ago to shop for her wedding in March last year.

"You can browse the whole street in a day, and it's full of gowns, flowers, accessories, tea sets and other things. It's really quite cool," says the health-care sciences student.

She bought her wedding gown there for about $500. "There, you can get a gown off the rack according to your measurements without having to commit to a package, which is nice.

"In Singapore, gowns are usually sold as part of a package, which can cost a few thousand dollars."

She adds, however, that the style of wedding gowns there is a lot more elaborate than the ones sold here.

"Modern styles with clean lines are more difficult to find," she says, adding that her own dress was elaborate and intricate.

Ms Judith Xavier, 33, went to Chennai in India before she got married in 2006.

"When we made our wedding shopping list, my mum and I estimated that many of the items we needed to buy would be cheaper in India," she says.

"As India has the latest fashion in Indian wear and jewellery, we thought it would be nice to have a shopping spree and a short holiday before the wedding too."

They chose Chennai as they were looking for sari designs more typical of South India, says the freelance writer.

"The style of saris and jewellery in every Indian city is different and, in Chennai, the saris are typically made of lighter silks in jewel-toned colours, " says Ms Xavier.

She estimates that her shopping cost around 30 per cent less than what it would have cost in Singapore.

On the four-day trip, she and her mother snagged deals on wedding saris, jewellery and had custom wedding invites printed from scratch within a day.

She saved about $650 on her wedding invitations, which cost just $100 to print a set of 250 cards, envelopes and inserts in Chennai. Printing similar sets of invites here would have easily cost her $750, at $3 a set.

Ms Kabita Basu Mallick went to Calcutta before she tied the knot in 2009, because wedding gear in India is "cheaper, and the variety is beyond compare".

A cousin who lived there took her to places such as Russell Street, which is popular with brides because of its numerous sari shops.

"In Singapore, there are very few shops that you can get good wedding stuff at. One of my friends recently bought a silk sari here that cost her $1,800.

My most expensive sari from Calcutta was less than half the price, at $700, and you wouldn't be able to find that sort of design here either," says the 31-year-old, who works in human resources.

Ms Laura Ann Yeo, whose father is Peranakan, headed to Jonker Street in Malacca to buy a kebaya for her wedding four years ago.

"There are many stores there selling kebayas, but there is one shop in particular - J Manik - that is very reputable among the Peranakan community here," says the 32-year-old, who works in agency management.

"When you walk past that row of shops, this particular one stands out for its quality and intricate designs."

She spent RM1,800 on her wedding kebaya set, which included the traditional beaded shoes. This is around half the price she would have had to pay here.

She adds: "In Malacca, you can find pure Peranakan kebaya designs that are authentic. Even if you could find that here, they are sure to be extremely expensive."

Ms Sim admits that after factoring in the cost of her flights, she may not have saved much on her wedding shopping overall, but she does not mind.

"It's more the variety that I'm after," she says. "It also makes the whole wedding planning process more interesting as it is a holiday at the same time."

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