We are traveling for my best friend's wedding in Italy. I am wondering what kind of bag or how I should pack for my dress and husband's suit. I've read similar posts, but unlike those, we are going to be traveling for 14 days before the wedding. One of my main concerns is we have a very short layover between our domestic and int'l flight and I'm concerned that we might make it, but our luggage might not. I've considered carrying the dress and suit onboard, but I don't know of any garment bags now that fit the size requirement. Should I just fold it in a wheeled carry on?

If you can fold the wedding clothes and put them in the suitcase I would as coat closets are virtually nil these days on flights. Don't buy one of those "stupid" wheeled garment bags as they don't go down the aisles of the planes and are difficult to get into the overhead bin. If you can find a nylon garment bag then perhaps you could put the suit and dress in there and fold up in the overhead rack.
Personally, I do not know how you can travel for 14 days and hit a wedding in a carryon bag-I can barely close my crew bag for a 24 hour layover. Besides,don't you want to have a checked bag to ship all your goodies home in from your trip? Have fun!

Oh, I'm sorry, but I didn't mean we'd only have the carryon. Believe me, I'm not that adept at packing! I was just thinking to have that for the wedding clothes since I figured it would be much easier to replace casual wear than it would the clothes for the wedding, at least my dress...

Would it be possible to mail your wedding clothes to your friend before you leave home? If so then they would be there waiting for you when you arrive for the wedding and you won't have to tote them onto a plane or with you on the rest of your vacation. Simply alert your friend that they will be arriving early and ask if she or he could have someone drop them at the cleaners to be pressed for you when they arrive. You arrive and pick up the clothes from the cleaners and off you go to the wedding fresh and pressed. That's what we did with my wedding gown and DH's clothes when we flew off to Las Vegas to get married because we didn't want to tote them around on the plane and everywhere else with us on the way and it worked great.

I managed a formal event (very formal - the Queen was there) out of a carry-on - and that was my only luggage for the whole trip.

So you should easily be able to get what you need for the wedding into normal 21 inch rollaboards. Maybe your husband should use a rollaboard w/ a "suiter" incorporated. But I personally advise against them in my packing classes since the suiter takes up extra space you could use for clothing.

I recently flew to be a bridesmaid in a wedding. When I arrived at the gate, I explained to the gate agent that, while my wedding clothes would fit in my carry on, I did not want them to get wrinkled, and was really hoping to hang them. Every time (and I got on 4 planes, b/c I had connections each way) the flight attendants were sympathetic and took my dress to hang.

My husband has to fly often with extra suits and uses a Swissgear garment bag that folds into thirds, not in half, so he doesn't have to check it. It was about $80 at Target, of all places. The compact shape is easier to carry and manage than either a carry-on roller bag or the old-style garment bag, though it holds about the same amount.

Usually I'd say "check it" because if luggage is delayed or lost you'll have ample time to recover or replace the outfits. However, I'm guessing you are part of the wedding party and your attire reflects that, so I'd take them in carry-on along with anything else not replaceable. Duty is right--closets are almost nonexistent on planes nowadays and I wouldn't count on a FA having space to hang it, especially on an international flight.

I haven't had a problem carrying a dress (and DH's suit) in a garment bag onto the plane and asking the flight attendants if I could hang it up in the closet.

OTOH, in your situation given you'll be traveling for a while before the wedding, I suggest you mail your wedding attire to the hotel ahead of time rather than lugging with you for 2 full weeks.

maybe we need a bit of clarification - are we talking a bridesmaid/frou frou dress, or merely a nice dress??

Shipping ahead would be a possiblility - but I'd want to ship it weeks ahead in case there were any snafu's.

Hi J,

Is it possible to buy a dress and a suit in Italy?

Do people actually wear suits these days?

I don't think you'll have a problem if that is your only carryon, regardless of its size. It isn't going to be that heavy, and will be foldable -- as long as you don't use those pieces of luggage called garment bags. I've traveled for business with just a nice blazer or something I didn't want to fold and wrinkle by putting in my suitcase (which was probably full otherwise), and just had in on a hanger covered by one of those cheap plastic vinyl garment bags with a zipper you can buy in a drugstore or somewhere. That wasn't full-length but jacket-length, though. It was real easy to just lay that on top of the stuff in one of the overhead bins after people put their bags in there, although if you are lucky you might get it hung somewhere up front. It doesn't really take up any more space than it would if someone had a coat they took off and folded up there.

I would let your husband carry his own suit as his carryon. Since he won't have a purse (presumably), he could also have a small messenger bag or something male purse-like for a few items.