@Squidly3 wrote:
I will be getting married in about one month. I will be traveling with my wedding dress from Las Vegas to Nashville. I am a little nervous to travel with it. The garment bag is quite big. It is like you are holding one of those extra large pizza boxes from Costco. That’s the length of it. I know I could put it in an overhead bin, but does anyone know of any other alternatives??
Greetings and congratulations on the big day!
Here are the rules for carryon's. Under federal law, all persons may bring one carryon bag for the overhead bin and one smaller personal item to fit under the seat ahead of you on board flights. Southwest's carryon size limit is 24"L x 16"W x 10"H. The second item needs to fit under the seat. The personal size limit is about 16.25"L x 13.5"W x 8" for an aisle seat with a slightly larger varying width span for the middle and window seats. A main drawback of carrying-on your garment is you'll "consume" your one allotted carryon bag space for the bin.
Note also that the Southwest terminal in LAS airport spans multiple concourses and is very large and busy; having to hand-carry the dress throughout the terminal may be difficult.
The alternative is to check the garment...However, I would strongly not recommend checking it and consider this option instead: Given that the wedding dress is a key essential item for your wedding ceremony and to avoid a possible risk of being separated from it in case of a travel disruption, I would contact your wedding coordinator and I would have it arranged to be shipped separately to Nashville via a guaranteed and trackable shipping service if you are unable to stow it in the overhead bin as a carry-on.
E.g.
https://www.fedex.com/en-us/service-guide/money-back-guarantee.html
https://www.ups.com/us/en/support/shipping-support/legal-terms-conditions/ups-service-guarantee.page
I would spend the extra money to ensure the delivery service is guaranteed. This will definitely add cost to the wedding bill but given the key importance of this item, this would be something that I would have shipped separately if I'm not able to carry it onboard the plane. Shipping it separately will also allow you to bring a larger carryon luggage on board for the overhead bin.
Hope this helps.
