D3300 with 16-300 lens - how to take pictures of white Prom dress (ivory)?

I was told I should use bracketing, but this camera doesn't have that automatic option. How should I try to not have these pictures blown out if I am taking outdoor pictures (if the weather cooperates, otherwise same question for inside)?

Well, I would still bracket, just do it manually. I'm not all that familiar with the D3300, but if it has exposure compensation you can bracket manually pretty quickly. Also, take a look at your histogram after a shot to see where you are at. The right side of the histogram will tell you if you are okay. Then, of course, shoot RAW so that you can adjust in post processing.

Yes, everything Woody said. Practice before hand. Practice with sun behind the subject, sun in their eyes, indoors. Practice in good and bad light. For my daughter, it was a struggle. Her dress was blue, so I was thankful for that. We met at the river for pictures very late afternoon. I even went there before hand to practice. On Prom night it was packed solid. So we pretty much followed the crowd to all the worst spots. Blazing sun over their heads, blazing sun in their eyes. I did manage to get some good pictures though as the crowd thinned and I could position better. Even the poorly positioned shots were not too bad. I used fill flash on some and kept the sun out of the viewfinder. Definitely shoot raw + jpg. Even if you have no idea about raw, you can learn what to do with the raw if needed. If there is a boy in black involved, it will be even more tricky to show the texture in the tux as well as not blow out the dress. Raw will help with that. Practice changing that exposure compensation quickly.

Hello and welcome..........................

Cindy Prince said:

I was told I should use bracketing, but this camera doesn't have that automatic option. How should I try to not have these pictures blown out if I am taking outdoor pictures (if the weather cooperates, otherwise same question for inside)?

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The issue, really, as I see it, is whether or not your D3300 will be able to handle the dynamic range of the shot; and either it will, or it won't.

If the dynamic range of the shot falls within what your D3300 can handle, you're pretty much golden. If the dynamic range falls outside of what your D3300 can handle you're going to have to decide if you want the dress properly exposed at the expense of something else blowing out. If you are okay with some other part or parts of your shot blowing out, then one solution to consider would be metering directly off the dress using Center-Weighted or Spot metering. But suggesting you use Spot-metering would elicit a barrage of posts about how Spot-metering is for experts only. *shrug* I disagree, personally, but if I were you I'd study up on the different metering modes and experiment with them until you understand how they work and what sort of result they're going to provide. Bracketing, as has already been mentioned would be good if you can do that, learning to read the histogram on your camera would also be time well spent. Shooting in raw, instead of JPG, assuming you have processing software, would give you a huge amount of latitude to correct exposure as well.