Weddings are expensive. We can pay upwards of thousands of dollars for our wedding dresses, which we wear once (okay, maybe a few times, if we do bridal pictures and have multiple receptions) and then they hang in our closets or sit in storage. Then financial trials come along, and we wonder how to pay off the new bills.
Have you ever considered selling your wedding dress?
Other brides are in need of beautiful dresses, and they’d be more than happy to save some money and purchase a gently used gown.
You can do this in a number of different ways. You can advertise in the newspaper, you can visit sites such as PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com, or you can talk to family and friends and see who might be interested. If you have an expensive dress and need to receive a larger sum of money than you might get through newspaper advertising, I’d take the Internet route, personally. PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com, for instance, handles dresses up into the $2000 range, and on those dresses, the price is often up to 47% off.
Of course, there are dresses that carry so much sentimental value, we wouldn’t dream of selling them. And my dress was custom-made for me by my friend’s mother, who is a highly talented seamstress, so not every wedding gown can or should be sold. But it is a highly viable option if that’s something you want to do.
I recommend talking to your local post office and finding out their tips and tricks for shipping a wedding gown. Take really good pictures of your gown, or do a Google search and find pictures of that design online so you can give your prospective buyer a good idea of what the dress looks like, if they aren’t local. If they are local, I highly recommend meeting with them to let them try on the dress. This will reduce stress for them, as well as taking the pressure off you for returns.
You might consider renting your dress out to multiple people, if it’s a popular size/style. You’d just need to be aware of the potential for stains and the need to dry clean.
If you are buying a used gown, see if you can try it on before you purchase. You can use the Internet to find out what others are saying about the designer or the style you are looking for. Ask the seller if the dress has received any stains, snags, or other damage before you purchase it. If it has, you can sometimes cover those up with lace or other beautiful embellishments, but be aware of them before you purchase.
If you can save money on your wedding in any way, I say go for it, especially in this economy. And if you can recoup any of the money you’ve spent on your wedding after the fact, I say go for that, too.
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