When a bride pictures her wedding day, she wants certain things to be absolutely ideal. The most important thing to a bride is having a wonderful partner waiting for her at the altar. But after that, the most important element is usually the dress.
It’s common for brides to grow up believing a wedding is their one day to truly look and feel like royalty, which might explain why brides are willing to pay an average of around $1,500 for a wedding dress. But you can have the dress of your dreams without forking over that much cash. Read on for some tips on buying a wedding dress without causing yourself financial distress.
Don’t mention weddings when you shop
The wedding markup is a real thing that happens, and it works like this. Say two people plan parties with the same amount of guests, the same menu, and the same venue. But if Party A is a birthday party and Party B is a wedding, the Party B is almost always going to cost more. Vendors often charge more because they fear that people in a wedding party will be harder to please than someone who’s just trying to pull off a 30th birthday party or family reunion. Also, birthdays and family reunions happen a lot more often than weddings.
Because of all that, it makes more sense to go shopping for a formal dress than a wedding dress. Of course, you’ll know what it’s really for, but the salespeople at the dress shop don’t have to know. If you’re worried that it will be too hard to omit the fact that you’re getting married, then remove some of the temptation to spill your guts by shopping online. You can search for a long white dress online without having to deal with a salesperson who won’t stop hovering and asking pointed questions.
Look for store closing sales
If you live in a big city, chances are good that you’ll get engaged around the same time that a bridal store owner in the area has decided to pull the plug on a business. It’s even worth looking for stores an hour or two away, because the money you spend on gas to drive there will be more than offset by all the cash you save on your dress.
Some dress stores do shut their doors without any warning. In 2017, Alfred Angelo closed its 60 stores overnight, leaving a lot of brides both angry and panicked. Even store managers weren’t given a heads-up. But that’s an extreme case, and in most cases, bridal shop owners will try to clear out merchandise before they shut down everything for good. Just don’t count on getting alterations at the shop if you find a dress — you’ll probably have to buy the garment as-is and then find a tailor on your own.
Get something borrowed
The cheapest way to get a wedding dress is to borrow one from a friend. To make this work, you’ll need a friend who wears your size and who has a wedding dress they’ve worn relatively recently. Sometimes older dresses work, but generally speaking, a dress worn in the last five years or so will be in better shape than one from 20 years ago.
Borrowing a wedding dress isn’t like borrowing a cardigan from your roommate. For one thing, a used wedding dress has typically only been worn once. Some brides may feel weird about wearing a dress that someone else has already gotten married in, and that’s understandable. But money you don’t spend on a dress can be spent elsewhere. If you and your spouse-to-be are considering the Oregon coast experience for your honeymoon, then borrowing a dress instead of buying can mean extending your trip by a few days. Many brides do the math and decide it’s worth the trade-off.